Narcissus Narcosis – Marshall McLuhan
Channel: Transition21
Date: 2016-04-23

In his book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan discusses numbness as a defensive reaction of the body to block out new sensations, especially those caused by new technology. He equates technology as the extensions of man, with electricity serving as the extension of the central nervous system. In the chapter, “The Gadget Lover,” he regards every extension of the body as a self-amputation. In McLuhan’s physiological rendition of the term, numbness or autoamputation is the body’s way of maintaining equilibrium when the “perceptual power cannot locate or avoid the cause of irritation […] that is imposed by various pressures”. He specifically highlights the negative impact of new technology, which simultaneously acts as a “counter-irritant” yet “brings about a new intensity of action by its amplification of a separate or isolated function” (42). To McLuhan, technological innovations are double-edged swords that make human lives easier, but also create new forms of stress. He says, “The stimulus to new invention is the stress of acceleration of pace and increase of load”. As a result of this increase in speed, the central nervous system has no choice but to numb itself from this new intensity. Thus, a new extension or technological invention is also a self-amputation. Since the body cannot handle the stress of new technology, it must numb or disconnect itself from its perception of that new stressor, thereby amputating the new extension of itself. He states that “the successive mechanizations of the various physical organs […] have made too violent and superstimulated a social experience for the central nervous systems to endure”. Numbness of the senses sets in as various extensions of the human body have become too much to manage. McLuhan says, “Shock induces a generalized numbness or an increased threshold to all types of perception. The victim seems immune to pain or sense”. In this case, the victim is man, who has extended himself so far that he is vulnerable to the intense and rapid stimuli of new technology.

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Marshall McLuhan describes narcissism as brought about by technology. He theorized that electronic culture causes shock, eliciting narcissistic response (auto-amputation and numbing of self-projection), which in turns generates:

- Denial of Reality
- Nostalgia / Romaticization
- Broadcasting of self / celebrity culture.
- Splitting and idealization of self - real versus virtual.

"Narcissus narcosis" is the shock of recognition that results in numbness. McLuhan draws upon Hans Selye's work with stress. In cases of severe stress or irritation, Selye has observed, the body reacts with a simulated amputation. The boxer battered too long in the shoulder eventually loses his sense of pain in the shoulder. A new technology is both caused by and causes "Narcissus narcosis." The quickened pace in exchanging "written monetary media" in early civilizations created an extension of acceleration and movement. The irritation this caused demanded a counter-irritant, or an "autoamputation", the wheel.

The second step of the process is the most complex. The extension of one feature causes a numbing "blindness" to the real character of the extension; it likewise forces, either immediately or eventually, an autoamputation--another extension that can act as a counter-irritant. Even as we encounter a technology new to our environment, we immediately numb ourselves to it. "Precisely at the point where a new media-induced environment becomes all pervasive and transmogrifies our sensory balance, it also becomes invisible."

The process of Narcissus narcosis reaches its apex, McLuhan states, with electronic technology, which is an extension of not simply of one organ, but of the entire nervous system. Each new technology is a response to the buffeting effects of an older one--McLuhan's adaptation of Innis's theory of new media subverting the older ones. Electricity arrives, therefore, by way of the printing press, "It could well be that the successive mechanizations of the various physical organs since the invention of printing have made too violent and superstimulated a social experience for the central nervous system to endure."

- Marshall McLuhan: Renaissance for a wired world, Volume 3

http://heavysideindustries.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/mcluhan_understanding_media-gadgetlover.pdf