Anything so important as wholeness in knowing, and anything so obvious, had to be mainstream. The haptic sense has been the key to life in the Western world this century either by its presence or absence. And McLuhan knew that and focused his work on that. Electric Involvement Supersedes Visual Order A million monkeys typing on a million typewriters for a million years would type the works of Shakespeare. The fantasy illuminates the nature of our phonetic alphabet-uniform, repeatable, abstract and meaningless units.
Oral cultures act and react at the same time.
Phonetic culture endows men with the means of repressing their feelings and emotions when engaged in action. To act without reacting, without involvement, is the peculiar advantage of Western literate man. Language was his entry into media study. Next we'll be Swinging on a Star and sssshhhwwoooo and sliding on a moon beam. All those gestural qualities that the printed page strips from language come back in the dark, and on the radio.