Bell, Daniel (1919-2011)

The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

1976

"They [Marsall McLuhan's ideas] are Turkish baths of the mind."

And finally a hedonistic age had its own appropriate prophet--Marshall McLuhan. A hedonistic age, defined by the fact that knowledge becomes coded in messages organized as formulas, slogans, and binary distinctions. By grasping the code, a person feels comfortable in understanding the complex worlds about him. McLuhan is a writer who not only has defined the hedonistic age in terms of such coding devices, but also has topped the trick by exemplifying in his own style the device of coding that age's own thoughts in a set of formulas appropriate to the time. The idea that the medium is the message (so that ideas are secondary or do not count); that some media are "hot," like radio (it excludes people), while others are "cool," like television (it requires involvement to complete the participation); that print culture is linear, while visual culture is simultaneous--all these distinctions are are not meant to be used analytically, or tested by some empirical means; they are litanies to assuage a person’s anxieties and enhance his sense of well-being within the new modes of communication. They are Turkish baths of the mind. All in all, Marshall McLuhan was an advertising man’s dream, in more ways than one.
(73)

Liquid::Bath

Reading

Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism: Twentieth Anniversary Edition (New York: Basic Books, 1996).

03/03/2016