McLuhan, Facebook and the new tribalism

Probably the most influential writer in the development of my feeble little mind has been Marshall McLuhan, whose "Understanding Media" and "The Medium is the Massage" I read to pieces when I was tyke. Back in the day McLuhan was dismissed by most of his academic colleagues as a loopy pop phenom. Now academics declare the brilliance of supposedly innovative insights that McLuhan tossed off forty years ago.

Today's New York Times highlights a particularly telling example: the emerging theory that the web is ushering in a return to a tribal society more reflective of oral, pre-literate culture.

Oh really? Could it be?

As I note in my web class, this was one of McLuhan's oft-repeated predictions--in the words of one commentator, "for McLuhan the coming of the electronic age will precipitate a return to the tribalism and diversity that collapsed in the age of movable type"; for much more, see McLuhan's landmark Playboy interview. To its credit, the NYT article does point the connection to the work of one of McLuhan's most influential students, Walter Ong.

Readers interested in a blog that provides consistently insightful McLuhan-inspired commentary, check out Mark Federman's What is the (Next) Message?