A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Ordinary human instinct causes people to recoil from the new environments and to rely on the rear-view mirror as a kind of repeat or ricorso of the preceding environments, thus insuring total disorientation at all times ... The visual space creates a kind of human identity that is extremely fragmented. To retain such an image of the self requires persistent violence, both to one's self and to others. As Joyce put it, 'Love thy label as thyself.' Labels as classification are extreme forms of visual culture.
Through the Vanishing Point with Harley Parker (1968), Preface, pp xxiii-xxiv
Year: 1968
↪ Also at #2552, #6847, #7312
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan