94
PARTISAN REVIEW
prolifically. Then where does he stand on the matter of print culture?
But that is a question of point of view, and McLuhan, in the spirit of his
animus against what he believes to be a feature of print culture, resists
being pinned down. "The theme of
I
The Gutenberg GalaxyJ
is not that
there is anything good or bad about print but that unconsciousness of
the effect of
any
force is a disaster, especially a force that we have made
ourselves. "
This is a version of the statement that we have already encountered
in
The Mechanical Bride:
we cannot presume to control the effects of
mass culture if we don't learn its ways. A laudable aim, but nowhere in
McLuhan's work is there the slightest hint of how understanding leads
to control. What we get is an account of our media fate, but not of how
to master it. McLuhan seems to subscribe to the Hegelian definition of
freedom as the recognition of necessity.
Is it not possible to emancipate ourselves from the subliminal oper–
ation of our own technologies? Is not the essence of education civil
defense against media fall-out? Since the effort has never been
made in any culture the answer may seem
to
lie in doubt. There
may be some hitherto unsuspected and wise motive for mental
sleep and self-hypnosis in man which the confrontation of the
effects of the media technology would reveal.
McLuhan's questions provoke questions. First there is the matter of
his contested understanding of the changing technology of the media
and the effect of that technology on the sensorium. Is it true that print
culture separates the senses, and, in giving primacy to the visual sense,
allows the other senses
to
atrophy? In his little book on McLuhan,
Jonathan Miller, a trained neurologist, deftly exposes his understanding
of the sensorium. Miller's demonstration is too extensive and complex
for summary. Here is an example.
"J
McLuhan
I
speaks...about print
'stepping up the intensity of vision,' which is not wrong exactly but
meaningless. For vision is not the sort of 'thing'
to
which the concept of
intensity can be significantly applied. One may talk about the intensity
of a visual
stimulus-but
it makes no sense to talk about the intensity
of vision." Miller then provides a technical account of how "the inten–
sity of a spot of light" is a function of stimulus and not of vision. Miller
also refutes McLuhan's claim that "the mind becomes biased by undue
emphasis applied to one particular sense" by showing that it is "cogni–
tive interest [that] determines the use to which the various senses will be
put, not vice versa."
It
is not enough to make an effort
to
understand;
