a little more McLuhan (& maybe Pynchon)

[alice wellintown]

Mark, you seem to arguing that McLuhan's idea is confirmed by the
single fact that literate and non-literate societies have existed and,
as we know, still exist.   But McLuhan's hypothesis, after more
observation, after more science than he had at hand, after Chomsky &
Co. has not explained what has been observed. Contrast McLuhan with
Chomsky. Chomsky has not an idea but a theory. Chomsky's theory
explains what is observed in literate and non-literate societies. So,
it's not merely a matter of philosophical pondering or speculations
because we have now entire disciplines dedicated to the study of these
questions, such as linguistics, cognitive science ..., and these
disciplines, while they disagree on many things, and many take issue
with UG entirely  or elements of UG, agree that UG is a theory. Now,
as we know, Chomsky makes use of Plato or what he terms "Plato's
Problem" but this is not a confirmation of Plato's idea and we
certainly can not and should not confuse Plato's philosophical
dialogues with theories such as those devised by linguists to explain
how language works. McLuhan has good company with Plato and with
Pynchon. But we should not confuse the poets with the scientists.
Plato would bar McLuhan from his Republic and exile himself, just a
Milton, placed in Paradise, would eat the fruit.


On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 1:53 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Very interesting thread goin' 'round, as can happen. Philosophical
> epistemology, nature of mind
> and more...Roussea said we were 'blank slates', Plato that the Forms
> preexisted, Kant that
> space & time were apriori concepts, the existentialists that we were blank
> slates again, Chomsky
> has his grammatical 'forms".
>
> But I will blame my own insufficient posts to say: all of this philosophical
> pondering is irrelevant
> to McLuhan on literate and pre-literate.....they have existed in
> societies....
>
> What, if anything, flows from that fact, he offers a vision about....
>
> That's all, foax.
>
> P.S. alice has alluded to Pynchon's 'use' of such 'stuff" as McLuhan's
> dreams were made on;
> do we remember when pynchon scored on literacy/writng/printing in GR?......
>
> And here's the BIG influence, I say, almost unhumbly.........the concept of
> linearity in Western literacy---singling up
> all lines' as a narrowing---
>
>
>
> From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
> To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> Cc: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>; David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>;
> pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 1:13 PM
> Subject: Re: a little more McLuhan (& maybe Pynchon)
>
> If we posit a dialectic of experience versus language, we create a
> false dichotomy, obviously enough, but that is how McLuhan's thought
> often comes across to me. Still, we can use such false dichotomies to
> hone fine points of understanding. I think in images, feelings, and
> words, combined in a miasma of nonsense until the discipline of logic
> imposed by language frees me to select sense from the collage.
> Interior literacy, or an individual's capacity to discover sense in
> one's thought, is the acquired skill that makes social literacy
> possible to a greater or lesser degree in whatever language, be it
> English, Swahili, algebra or finance.
>
> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 4:25 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 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
>>
>> And young 'uns learn most languages as abstract marks on a page.
>> English say.....
>>
>> The literate vs. pre-literate distinction is in anthropologists' work and
>> is still used to the present....
>>
>> 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....
>>
>> 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....................
>>
>> What is that like psychically? Is that part of the reason his speech finds
>> more
>> visual analogies, it seems?....I would say Yes......................
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>> To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>> Cc: David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Sent: Monday, August 29, 2011 10:32 AM
>> Subject: Re: a little more McLuhan (& maybe Pynchon)
>>
>> The point David Payne makes is valid no matter what McLuhan might say.
>> Literate versus Pre-literate is a gray scale.  And writing "symbols"
>> often start as picture symbols.
>>
>> On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 7:08 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:>
>>>
>>> From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>> To: David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>
>>> Cc: Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 9:37 AM
>>> Subject: Re: a little more McLuhan (& maybe Pynchon)
>>>
>>>
>>> For McLuhan, who started this the answer is No...writing
>>> is phonetic abstraction, marks signifying the form of words.  Helen Keller
>>> famously learning
>>> the word for water might be a touchstone example.....
>>>
>
>>> He uses 'literacy' the old-fashioned way as well. He uses it the way the
>>> anthropolgists and sociologists did when they found and wrote of
>>> pre-literate peoples., people who did not read symbolic marks as words.....
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Right.  And are pictures writing?
>>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 11:43 PM, David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> "literate" vs. "pre-literate" peoples is gray scale, not an "Us" vs.
>>>> "Them".
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
> creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
> trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
> of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
> than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>
>
>