1.28
|
Etymology comes to the rescue. Relying on
the
Latin term translatio, McLuhan
insists
that it is in the nature of metaphor to move and
metaphor is unavoidable (n7) and likewise, is constant
extension.
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1.28
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1.29
|
Bolstered by etymology, McLuhan's conception of
metaphor tends to tautology: an extension
is a
translation is a metaphor is an artefact is an
extension. McLuhan does characterize the
arena of
technological development as a closed system (Gutenberg
Galaxy
5).
The constraining circularity confirms the implied
determinism. Since it locks the domain of
techne into that of
logos, it also can vouchsafe the
privileged position of the artist. In
particular,
poets as wordsmiths offer vis-a-vis new
technologies
emulatable attitudes. As McLuhan explains in
From Cliché to Archetype, in
their
capacity as technicians of the word, poets are
capable
of recuperating and refurbishing old means and
meanings.
|
1.29
|
1.30
|
By combining a cyclical view of technological
extension
with an expressive theory of language, McLuhan
deflects
the difficulties posed by any consideration of the
role
social organization plays in the mediation between
language and technology. This is
particularly
evident when the extension analogy is accompanied
by
the onomatopoeia
"outering/uttering".
Technology like speech arises magically,
inevitably. In McLuhan's universe discursive
dilation is akin to technological expansion.
However the kinship does not explain the premise
of an
uncontrollable urge to speech.
|
1.30
|
1.31
|
Again, rhetorical analysis explains much in
McLuhan's
moves. Puns, etymologies and their similar
operations are examined by Jean Paulhan who
outlines
the generation of proof by etymology as
follows:
attention to sound without regard to
meaning;
discovery of a neglected meaning;
projection of
discovered meaning as the origin and the common
bond of
words so processed (La
Preuve 72-73).
Ironically McLuhan
confounds etymology with aetiology (n8).
|
1.31
|
1.32
|
Outering and uttering bespeak another pair:
transformation and transmission. The play of
prefixes and the implicit etymologies involved
affirm a
link subtending McLuhan's notion of extension, a
link
between communication and creation. In
Understanding Media, he writes
"just
as a metaphor transforms and transmits experience
so do
the media" (59).
|
1.32
|
1.33
|
The storage function of language, McLuhan derives
from
Leslie A. White. Its power to alter reality
is a
commonplace that he himself refigures.
Discontinuity (n9),
speed (n10), competition (n11), mark McLuhan's
thinking about the transformation of
experience.
None of these concepts are in the passage from
White
that McLuhan draws upon. Indeed in White
experience implies sharing and continuity.
Like
J.Z. Young he narrates the evolution from trial
and
error learning to reasoning:
Man began his career as an anthropoid who was
just learning to talk. He was
distinguished from all other animal
species
by the faculty of articulate
speech. It
was this faculty which transformed the
discontinuous, non-accumulative, non-
progressive process of tool-using among
the
anthropoids into a continuous,
cumulative and
progressive process in the human
species. Articulate speech
transformed
also, the social organization of this
gifted
primate, and by the inauguration of co-
operation as a way of life and security,
opened the door to virtually unlimited
social
evolution. And, finally, language
and
speech made it possible for man
to
accumulate experience and knowledge in a
form
that made easy transmission and maximum
use
possible. [our
emphasis] (White 240))
Prefacing it by a remark about language as tool
McLuhan
incorporates only the portion italicized above
into his
discourse on transformation and transmission.
|
1.33
|
1.34
|
Through language all things are possible, for
McLuhan. Transformation is but the
alternation of
storage and retrieval hence transmission is
transformation. Humans are said to
"possess
an apparatus of transmission and transformation
based
on [their] power to store
experience. And
[their] power to store, as in language
itself,
is also a means of transformation of
experience"
(Gutenburg
Galaxy
x).
|
1.34
|
1.35
|
From Cliché to Archetype is
devoted
to this dynamic. Just as the dynamic of
storage
and retrieval rings the tones of Augustine's
solution
to the problem of free will and determination, so
the
omnipotence accorded language echoes the mystery
of a
word made flesh (n12):
Language is a technology which extends all of
the human senses simultaneously.
All
the other human artifacts are, by
comparison,
specialist extensions of our physical
and
mental faculties. Written language
at
once specializes speech by limiting
words to
one of the senses. Written speech
is an
example of such specialism, but the
spoken
word resonates, involving all the
senses. (Cliché
20-21)
|
1.35
|
1.36
|
Like Donne, Traherne and Herbert, authors treated
in
Rosalie Colie's work on Renaissance paradox, a
work
upon which McLuhan relies extensively for
From
Cliché to Archetype, he comes close
to
identifying creator with created. The
paradoxes
of negative theology figured in the English poetic
tradition inform McLuhan's understanding of
acoustic
space in (Laws of
Media
102).
|
1.36
|
1.37
|
He states his argument most clearly in an
interview
with Bruce Powers:
The imagination is most creative in acoustic
space. Acoustic space has the
basic
character of a sphere whose focus or
"center" is simultaneously
everywhere and whose margin is
nowhere.
A proper place for the birth of
metamorphosis. (Global
Village 134)
What undoes McLuhan is not the terms but the
argument. He contrasts Euclidean (script and
print) space with acoustic (oral) space. In
McLuhan's principle source on the properties of
acoustic space the term itself does not
appear.
Indeed, F.M. Cornford in "The Invention of
Space" writes "the essential property of
Euclidean space is that it had no centre and no
circumference (Cornford
219). The
infinite space of
Euclidean
geometry is very like a paradox of negative
theology.
|
1.37
|