A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Right now this means, for example, that we are going to insist that Johnny acquire the art of reading, if only because print is the matrix of Western industrial method in production, and print teaches consumer habits of sequential analysis and fragmentation of all motion into static units. Print teaches habits of privacy and self-reliance and initiative. It provides a massive visual panorama of the resources of our mother tongue which pre-literate people only knew by ear. In fact, print is not only access to our culture and technology, it is our culture and technology.
“What Fundamental Changes are Foreshadowed in the Prevailing patterns of Educational organization and Methods of Instruction by the Revolution in Electronics?” 1959, p 1
Year: 1959
Chapters: Print | Reading
↪ Also at #5746
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan