This passing thought may be more appropriate for a twitter than a blog, but I thought it worth noting here, if for no other reason than to remind myself to elaborate on it later.
My Voltaire quote of the day reads "The multitude of books is making us ignorant." I wonder if that would today be better read as "The multitude of media is making us ignorant." Or, "The multitude of messages is making us ignorant." (I'm not entirely convinced that McLuhan's theory of "the medium is the message" isn't much more than an extreme equivocation.)
Some related food for thought for anyone who's looking for a book to read:
1 comments:
I think you're onto something here--I think also, though, that another question that arises is this: ignorant of what, exactly? It's ironic, really, that supposedly as inundated with "information" as we are through various media, we would end up in ignorance, but in truth much of what those media are spewing amounts to "noise." At any rate, thanks for the post--can't wait to see more elaboration on it!
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