A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

So far as I know, there is no instance of a pre-literate society with an architecture or a city structure. And the reason, presumably, is that pre-literate man lived in acoustic space, a space structured by sound and incantation. It was not until he had developed the visual equivalent of sound that he learned how to shape and control visual space.
“A Historical Approach to the Media” (1955), p 106
Year: 1955
Chapter: Tribal Societies
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan