The TV generation is tribal and scrubbed. It has lost its identity, and it is very angry and it is fighting like mad to recover self-image by suffering. The tragic agon is a quest for identity such as when people have had their identity scrapped or scrubbed, they fight. Student activists are not merely aware of themselves as occupants of the global theatre. They are also people struggling for identity in a world that has robbed them by innovation. I don’t suppose so many babies were thrown out with so little bath water in human history; but TV scrapped, by sudden technological change, a whole generation of children.
“The Hardware-Software Mergers: How Successful Have They Been?” Speech given at conference, Reappraisal of the Educational Technology Industry, University of Chicago, November 16-118, 1969. Transcript, p 5
Year: 1969
Chapter:
Retribalizing
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan