On Two Natures

Aristotle first noted that the Greek invention of Nature was made possible when they had left behind a savage or barbaric state (first nature) by putting on an individualized and civilized one (second nature). And A.T.W. Simeons has discussed at length how disruptive the second nature has been to the first. Made discarnate by our electric information media, the west is furiously at work retrieving its obsolesced organic first nature in a spectrum of new aesthetic modes, from feminism to phenomenology. As our second nature consists entirely in our artifacts and extensions and the grounds and narcoses they impose, their etymologies are all to be found in first nature, the wild body.

Marshall and Eric McLuhan, Laws of Media, 1988

The End of the Landline

This just in from Wheaton College (not sure how many other campuses have already gone the same route):

Re: Elimination of Phones in Residence Halls

There are no longer active phone lines in residence hall rooms. Due to the fact that the vast majority of Wheaton students have cell phones, advancement in technology, and other reasons, it was decided to have the land lines discontinued. Phone lines remain in campus apartments and houses. Phones remain in the residence hall lobby areas for general student use with a prepaid calling card or for emergency 911 use. The Resident Assistant on each floor will also have a phone in his/her room for emergency purposes.

Please follow this link to the Residence Life website for more information on alternative communication systems which students can use: http://www.wheaton.edu/studentlife/reslife/policies-financial-faq/faq#idqo4dRzonbp96pM-Hp7afkQ

We understand that room phones have been a traditional way in which parents, professors and off-
campus community members have been directed by the switchboard to reach you. It will, therefore, be important for you to distribute your cell phone number accordingly. If you live in a residence hall, the College will NOT give out your cell phone number but rather your College email address.

If you live in a residence hall, please discuss ahead of time with your parents how to proceed if they need to contact you in case of an emergency and your cell phone is not available. If it is a true emergency, please have your parents contact Public Safety, who can put them in touch with the on duty Residence Life staff member in your building. If your parents desire contact information of other people, we suggest you give them your roommate or close friend's cell phone. If you have concerns that have not been addressed in this email please contact either --- or ---.

Thank you

The link provides this information:
How can I make phone calls if I do not have a cell phone?

Our residence hall rooms no longer have College provided phones. There are phones in the main lobbies and floor lounge areas where students will be able to dial 800 numbers, campus numbers and 9-911 in case of an emergency. Listed below are some communication options that students can use. These alternate methods of communication are not endorsed by Wheaton College, but are listed for your convenience.

Magic Jack- www.magicjack.com

Skype- www.skype.com

IChat- www.apple.com/macosx/what-is-macsx/ichat.html

Google Voice- www.google.com/voice - Save cell phone minutes by using Google Voice

Calling Cards

Total War

Time August 21, 1995

Real, total war has become information war. It is being fought by subtle electric informational media--under cold conditions, and constantly. The cold war is the real war front--a surround--involving everybody--all the time--everywhere. Whenever hot wars are necessary these days, we conduct them in the backyards of the world with the old technologies. These wars are happenings, tragic games. It is no longer convenient, or suitable, to use the latest technologies for fighting our wars, because the latest technologies have rendered war meaningless. The hydrogen bomb is history's exclamation point. It ends an age-long sentence of manifest violence!

Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage, 1967

Technological Pollination

It is because our lives are so attached to and involved with the evolution of our machines that we have grown to see and feel everything in revolutionary terms, just as once the natural mood was conservative. We instinctively repose on the future rather than the past, though this may not yet be generally realized. Instead of the static circle of the rotation of the crops, or the infinitely slow process of handiwork, we are in the midst of the frenzied war of machines. This affects our view of everything; our life, its objects and uses, love, health, friendship, politics; even art to a certain extent, but with less conviction.

Wyndham Lewis, The Art of Being Ruled, 1926

Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms.

Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964

Catholicism and Protestantism in the Global Village

For the Catholic, the revealed Word of God is not the Gutenberg Bible, not the King James Version. But the Protestant cannot but take a different view of the passing of preeminence of the printed book, because Protestantism was born with the printing press and seems to be passing with it. There again, the Catholic alone has nothing to fear from the rapidity of the changes in the media of communication. But national cultures have much to fear. In fact, it is hard to see how any national culture as such can long stand up to the new media of communication. ... It is not markets we now invade but the cultures and the minds of men. And this process is furthest advanced here in North America.

Marshall McLuhan, The Medium and the Light, 
from a lecture delivered at St. Joseph's College, 
West Hartford, CT, 1954

The McLuhan's at Wheaton College

This week at Wheaton College my peers and I had the delightful privilege of hosting Eric and Andrew McLuhan. They were quite gracious with their time, and we greatly enjoyed their company. Apart from hanging out and talking media ecology (and Catholicism), Eric participated in a roundtable discussion on the greatest moral challenges of the next decade, discussing the transformations caused by electric technology. A recording of the roundtable can be streamed or downloaded here:

- Presentation (Eric's is the second presentation)

- Discussion

Check them out, and enjoy the discussion. 

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Bonus! Let me share with you a nugget which Andrew shared with me. Again, a big thanks to you both!

The Guy:

via: Andrew McLuhan and WETN

Man: An Instrument of Efficiency

Advertisers have been reading up on their media ecology this summer. Then, they turn it around and try to use it to get you to buy stuff. Jacques Ellul's biggest social critique was that technology (both hardware and software) was making us less human by making us servants to efficiency. Now that we live in the 21st century and have gotten past all that Luddite mumbo jumbo, we can switch these arguments around and use them to sell stuff. Buy a Droid: because your goal in life is to be "an instrument of efficiency."


Peep this:





via: Nicholas Oswald