One way of stating our condition is to say that in the electronic age our entire technology has achieved the freedom and flexibility that had formerly been available only in the verbal universe. The metaphoric parallels and discontinuities — parataxis and syntaxis — by which mankind had first learned to structure acoustic space and create a subtle world of oral and interpersonal relations is now possible visually and spatially as well.
From his 1955 Report to the Ford Foundation, quoted in W. Terrence Gordon’s Marshall McLuhan: Escape into Understanding (1997), p 164
Year: 1955
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan