A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Whereas hardware communication is a kind of transportation which centralizes organizational on every part of a structure. That is why the executive drops out of the old organization-chart patterns at electric speed. At electric speed, which is the speed of light, we are disembodied beings. On the phone, or "on the air", we are instantly present, but minus our bodies.
Letter to Pierre Elliot Trudeau, February 24, 1977, in Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987), p 528
Year: 1977
Chapter: Discarnate
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan