On separation

From Allison:

MM concept of "media" being a medium or sorts is very interesting. The impact of
each medium varies with each social network. Meaning, while the actual medium
remains constant, the effect is different. For this I agree. However, once
someone detaches themselves from the medium, they can control the outcome of the
medium. So does this mean that everyone who attempts to change media or
technology is living in a detached state? So by detaching themselves, they
neutralize the affect the medium has. But is that possible? If the media and
technology, and all the other words he uses to describe the exact same
thing, are all around you, how can you detach yourself? It would be like
going into a different dimension, not just mentally, but completely. Maybe it
has something to do with this light bulb idea. Media isn't an actual thing, but
is determined and described by the result of the affect it has on the
environment. So does that mean the words in a newspaper isn't an actual thing,
but the result of it on the social fabric?

This from David re: MM

All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the message. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without knowledge of the way media work as environments (McLuhan 26).




I think -- don't know -- that McLuhan would say: don't imagine that you can completely separate yourself. (I think again of that video clip in which he seemed to acknolwedge, playfully, the impossibility of achieving a point of view untinctured by the media about which one is trying to have a point of view.