a little more McLuhan (& maybe Pynchon)

[alice wellintown]

 I think McLuhan would say that, even on a gray scale, black & white
> are qualitatively different......like literate vs. pre-literate even on a gray scale

He would say this.


> And young 'uns learn most languages as abstract marks on a page. English say.....

This is false. First, humans don't learn language but are born with
language. Second, McLuhan's poor understanding of language allows him
to expand the qualitative differences, grey or black or whatever, to
an absurd and foolish conclusion about the impact of writing and
reading on human culture and the human mind. Again, this is the stuff
that makes Plato or McLuhan or Pynchon fun to read, makes the wise
poets and priests, philosopher kings, but much of what they lecture on
is utter nonsense.

>
> The literate vs. pre-literate distinction is in anthropologists' work and is still used to the present....

Like all technologies, printing brought positives and negatives.
Surely there are things that pre-literate cultures have kept or
developed that literate cultures have lost or neglected. We would all
be better runners if we hadn't abandoned the cave and invented the
wheel. But the health that would come with our endurance would not
give us longer or better lives. We would die quite young.


>
> No one has (yet) answered whether they think mostly in words....for example,
> I watch TV....I SEE the words they are speaking...mostly...not every, I'm sure....

We think in grammar mot words.

>
> What would it be like if I didn't? My grandson, not yet three hears lots of words,
> speaks well within his limits yet..............cannot read yet....................

He thinks in grammar too. His lexicon is still small but he knows more
language than all the books in the world.

>
> What is that like psychically? Is that part of the reason his speech finds more
> visual analogies, it seems?....I would say Yes......................

We take short cuts he can't yet take because he doesn't have them at hand.