Summary

McLuhan's main argument in Gutenberg Galaxy is that technologies shape our cultures. In particular, he discusses the effects that literacy, the phonetic alphabet, and print have had on Western culture. McLuhan suggests that the introduction of these technologies is what distinguishes between "tribal" or "civilized" societies. Tribal societies are dominated by auditory experiences and civilized ones are dominated by visuals. It is the phonetic alphabet, McLuhan argues, that allows people to begin focusing on the visual over the aural. The phonetic alphabet creates a sort of schizophrenia in its users because its use turns words into representation of sounds rather than of direct things (as happens in a pictographic alphabet). This schizophrenic separation of the senses is what leads, in his eyes, to the development of the modern, Western mindset.

McLuhan attributes controlled and focused thinking to how print creates neat, smooth lines ("planes" in his terms) for our eyes to travel across. Moving our eyes in a sequential fashion results in our ability to think sequentially as well. Following along from one thing to the next, which print trains our eye to do, results in "civilized" persons becoming inclined to think that the entire world behaves in a similar sequential manner. The mechanistic, Newtonian view of the universe, then, should be attributed not to reality but to our perspective which has been shaped by our media and technologies.

McLuhan's argument seemed problematic to us, however, for his technological determinism, his slanted language, and his use of binary oppositions--despite his claims that there were no value judgments involved in determining whether one culture was "tribal" or "civilized." Moreover, we decided that it is impossible to test his claims. It's possible that he writes with the intention of being provocative rather than proving anything conclusively.

Word count: 295

Passage

This passage shows McLuhan arguing for the effect that technologies have to shift our bodies.

• “If a technology is introduced either from within or from without a culture, and if it gives new stress or ascendancy to one or another of our senses, the ratio among all of our senses is altered” (119).

This passage, in conjunction with others, suggested why the phonetic alphabet matters: it breaks the link between eye and ear and moves us from aural/tribal culture into visual/civilized culture. It prompted us to ask whether or not a technology had the capability to shift or change the body to the extent that McLuhan thinks it does.

The importance of the phonetic alphabet was driven home by a later passage:

• “By the meaningless sign linked to the meaningless sound we have built the shape and meaning of Western man” (145).

By "meaningless sign," McLuhan refers to the disconnect between the phonemes of sound and their arbitrary relationship to the lines that compose the written letters. What's more, he suggests that following the arbitrary lines of print has produced a change in "civilized" humans so that their thoughts become more linear and logical, in the Western sense.

Terms

• Technological determinism: It's the tendency to think that technology is the ultimate shaping force of society and that technological development proceeds along a particular path, regardless of culture.
• Phonetic alphabet: An alphabet that depends on a limited number of symbols to represent sounds (phonemes, morphemes, etc.) rather than complete concepts, as is the case in pictographic or ideographic writing systems.