

Marshall McLuhan: The Playboy Interview (1969) - applecore
http://www.nextnature.net/2009/12/the-playboy-interview-marshall-mcluhan/

======
brokentone
McLuhan is one of the most relevant thinkers to our time--if you can figure
him out. I've read most of his books, and written several papers on him and
still don't quite get it, feel like there are layers of what he was talking
about that I may never grasp.

Entry McLuhan for anyone interested -- The Medium is the Massage, a picture
book that originally was a misprint (The Medium is the Message, being the
phrase he coined), but he liked it and kept it. Kind feels like reading it is
a drug trip, but you start to figure him out.

Understanding Media -- Seminal work, he lays out the medium is the message,
media hot and cold, media as sensory extension, and other concepts as well as
catalogues how he sees various media affect us.

The Mailer/McLuhan debate from CBC is really interesting as well, Mailer as
existential/nihilist and McLuhan as nearly an analytic -- neither really
talking philosophy.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtzxWR-j1xY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtzxWR-j1xY)

~~~
ArkyBeagle
It's all a bit stream-of-consciousness. Some of that is I'd guess due to the
fascination then with psychedelics. I still run into people who wax poetic
about psychedelics as a social change mechanism and technology for personal
growth.

MacLuhan talks about how Nixon adapted to TV; turns out that was most likely
Roger Ailes' doing.

The present day "conservative" (tea party) movement is largely founded on
ideas from MacLuhan. One of the curious things about Fox is that it's a media
channel based on being against the media.

The indispensable idea from MacLuhan ( at least that's where I got it ) is
that of identity and that people have a ... shortage of it.

