Henry Adams on TV

[Paul Mackin]

Terrance's notes on Marshll McLuhan prompted me to pick up an old copy of
Understanding Media (1964) and immediately I came across a passage that
seemed related to the phono- and logocentrism thread. It's in a discussion
of his famous 'the medium is the message' idea which was essentially
that the medium or technology itself is the thing that's influential 
rather the any content imparted or use it is put to--say in print, radio,
TV, movies, etc.  Anyway the line that struck me was: "If it is asked
'What is the content of speech?' it is necessary to say, 'It is an actual
process of thought, which is itself nonverbal.'" All very traditional
and in accordance with philosophers like Plato. Yet only a few
lines earlier McLuhan had stated that 'any medium is always another
medium.' Was McL anticipating Derrida in this idea of infinite deferral
yet not quite seeing the full implications?  Derrida's important
works weren't yet published and certainly weren't available in English for
some time to come.  Interesting. Not only is Derrida not including in the
bibliography, neither is Heideggar.

				P.