A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

And constant use creates a new hidden environment while simultaneously pushing the old invisible ground into prominence, as a new figure, clearly visible for the first time. Every innovation scraps its immediate predecessor and retrieves still older figures; it causes floods of antiques or nostalgic art forms and stimulates the search for "museum pieces." In such cliche-archetype patterns, the new continually recreates the old as novelty regenerates antiquity.
“The Argument: Causality in the Electric World”, in Technology and Culture, Vol.14, No. 1, January (1973), p 2, reprinted in McLuhan Unbound # 3, (2005), p 7
Year: 1973
↪ Also at #4822
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan