Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 15:46:08 +0000
Subject: Re: hello?


Mike wrote:
 
>     My thesis is on Walter Ong's theory of secondary orality.  Ong
>     thinks that tv, radio, computers and other mass media enhance
>     individual consciousness; he stands virtually alone in his
>     opinion.  Other comm. theorists, especially McLuhan, Postman,
>     Meyrowitz, see electronic media as detrimental to individual
>     thought and consciousness. 

I did my honours thesis on McLuhan and language, and I came to Ong 
via McLuhan, who rips him off at various stages. In particular, the 
development of Gutenberg's press in the context of scholastic thought 
(especially Peter Ramus/Pierre de la Ramee) is all stuff McLuhan 
draws from Ong.

I'm unsure about your assessment of McLuhan's stance on mass media. 
Does it hinge on "individual" consciousness? On my reading of McLuhan 
from The Gutenberg Galaxy onwards, he is entirely enthusiastic about 
the possibilities for electronic means of communication to expand 
consciousness. The key may be that he does tend to see this as 
communal consciousness rather than individual- see the work on de 
Chardin's noos.

The problem I have with Ong and McLuhan is that: i) they are cultural 
critics with specifically Catholic interests and objectives; and ii) 
they both (Ong included) move from a dodgy idea of language, in part 
based on a dodgy reading of a bad Aristotelian view of the mind as a 
storehouse for words. Any reading of Lyotard, and also the first 
section of Derrida's Grammatology, will point out very indirectly 
where the problems lie.

Darren.
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