McLuhan

Been going over Mark Federman's doctoral thesis on Valence Theory and just thought I'd share a part of McLuhan's Understanding Media that he quotes with you all.

In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. That is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.... Many people would be disposed to say that it was not the machine, but what one did with the machine, that was its meaning or message. In terms of the ways in which the machine altered our relations to one another and to ourselves, it mattered not in the least whether it turned out cornflakes or Cadillacs. The restructuring of human work and association was shaped by the technique of fragmentation that is the essence of machine technology. The essence of automation technology is the opposite. It is integral and decentralist in depth, just as the machine was fragmentary, centralist, and superficial in its patterning of human relationships.

I recommend reading Federman's Valance Theory. It has brought me many new ideas for Civico (Civiko). Let us see what tmrw brings.