In today's ECO-world of electric information that flows unceasingly upon us from every side, we all encounter the predicament of Alice in Wonderland. Now effects merge with causes instantly through speedup, while "software" etherializes "hardware" by design. All rigid distinctions between thinker and doer, observer and observed, object and subject are being eroded by the "rim-spin" of electric media. Old ground rules and human perceptions are being transformed by this new resonant surround where nothing is stable but change itself. But like water to a fish, the environment we live in remains hidden. Only children and artists see "the emperor's new clothes."
“The Argument: Causality in the Electric World”, in Technology and Culture, Vol.14, No. 1, January (1973), p 1, reprinted in McLuhan Unbound # 3, (2005), 5-6
Year: 1973
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Book
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan