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| "After Altamira, all is decadence" Pablo Picasso. |
As we approach the end of this series, it is time to present a digest of all that I have embedded in these posts. We will start with the most important: an authentic discovery will always generate more questions, and this process is "nested". By this, I mean that the second and subsequent questions will follow suit. This has nothing at all to do with the truth of any statement; An untrue statement will also generate questions, and these questions will at once, or eventually, reveal that the statement is untrue. A corollary to this is that anything inauthentic will never generate more questions. I can give an example of the corollary: Someone asks a question on Facebook or any other website where there is a "like" button. If the only response is a "like" then no further discussion can ensue. The topic is now dead. If anyone has any further problems with the concept then simply read what my fellow Albertan, Marshall McLuhan had to say about "The medium is the message.". This link will provide you with a free PDF copy of Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media: The extensions of man, which is the source of the phrase "The medium is the message". If you have not read this and yet think that you know what it means, you are wrong. Can I be any more emphatic?
Picasso's statement refers to the fact that modern art had never been able to achieve what had been accomplished by Paleolithic artists, at the very least, 40,000 years ago (determined by a dating method with an absolute "most recent" date). What Picasso could not have known, at the time, and is reflected by his refusal to discuss the matter later is that, by about 1960, both art and human intelligence had started to decline at a rapid rate, the speed of which was unprecedented in human history.
Tomorrow, I will reveal for the first time what those Palaeolithic artists were actually doing, and not what their audience was experiencing. But, as yesterday was my 66th birthday, so today is my coyote hybrid's "official" 3rd birthday and I am taking him to a large pet shop where he can sniff out what he wants for his presents. The thought of being a living Blackfoot myth: "Old Man and Coyote" amuses me. In the meantime, this gives you the opportunity to read McLuhan's important first chapter. You will need to understand this.
John's Coydog Community page
John,
ReplyDeleteEach "authentic discovery" will open the mind to re-viewing what once was thought. Naturally such process entails an elaborate Q&A as we learn anew what we thought we knew.
Truth is what endures for all. And recognized only through "authentic discoveries" of it. No matter what the medium is, The Medium is the Message when the Message is Truth.
Kostas
Yes, but only if McLuhan is read first...
ReplyDeleteBest,
John
Yes, but must I read what I already know? Ask if you have any doubt.
ReplyDeleteKostas
Hi Kostas,
ReplyDeleteAs McLuhan is totally counter-intuitive, if you have not read "The Medium is the Message" it would actually be impossible for anyone to know what he means by that. In fact, most of the 6,800 words in that chapter (Chapter One) are examples from literature and history. He needed to do that because it is so opposite to what anyone would expect, and "the medium is the message" is actually very famous for being completely misunderstood!
Best,
John
John,
DeleteWhile you like stories, I like ideas. This may be our biggest difference.
Is McLuhan saying anything more than "the means are the Ends"? Or, "the Journey is the Destinations"? Or, "what you see is all you get"?
If I am wrong, then illuminate me. But don't make "me" the "content" of that Light!
Kostas
I'm sorry Kostas, I'm not following you here. Can you give me the McLuhan quote that is giving you the problem? I should be able to work it out from that.
DeleteBest,
John
John,
Delete... trying to encapsulate McLuhan into an idea I can digest.
How close does this come to that: "we are all creatures of our culture".
cheers,
Kostas
Funny you mentioned that, I will have a quote from Wassily Kandinsky on Monday saying the same thing. Nothing to do with McLuhan, though. McLuhan cannot be encapsulated. That would be like trying to encapsulate Medicine and then opening a practice as a G.P! he's a bit like Jung that way: very few of his closest associates could even approach his success.
DeleteBest,
John
John,
DeleteNo intellect can be or should be "encapsulated". I was referring to McLuhan's thoughts on "the medium is the message". Which can be and should be. I read and reread his chapter on this. And still can't coral all the scrambling rabbits McLuhan lets lose on the reader. That style of discourse is intellectually not satisfying for me. Though it likely is for you.
Any thoughts?
Kostas
Well, it is what it is. It's not just McLuhan, media is complex whether it is expressed by McLuhan, Tim Berners-Lee, or Phil Agre. There is just no solid ground to walk on. I really started to appreciate that when I was designing and testing emergency flood evacuation maps. The pessimist weeps. the cynic laughs... who was the greater terrorist -- Osama bin Laden or Homeland Security? We should be duly suspicious of anything that is satisfying. Everything is a meme to Dawkins, except for his own memes. No small wonder that Phil Agre went a little weird.
DeleteBest,
John
John,
DeleteI will accept "the media is the message" as being about the media and not the message.
Now everything makes sense! And all rabbits are back in their holes.
Cheers,
Kostas
Pesky rabbits!
DeleteGood morning John, just to wish you (and Tristan) a belated happy birthday, and I trust you both got what you wanted in the way of presents!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Thelma. We both got "treats": Tristan got dog treats and a toy (which he picked out, himself, at a pet-shop. I got two dinners at my favorite restaurant, the Beltliner, Calgary. The last one was meat-loaf, but a meat-loaf that might have been served by Gordon Ramsay: ground pork. bison and elk. This was followed my their own Saskatoon berry pie with (real) whipped cream. I had a "blood alley bitter" from Vancouver and two glasses of "writer's tears" an Irish pot-still whiskey the type of which was drunk by James Joyce and Yeats a hundred years ago. The entire meal cost the equivalent of £19.
Delete