Posted by Mystique
(here)
I have been studying a bit of Marshal McLuhan, a writer, Professor of Literature and what some say was the last true Philosopher.
According to McLuhan, before writing, we lived in tight tribal societies, had little privacy, and passed down our wisdom verbally - often in our storytelling. This McLuhan called the "Acoustic Age."
The Acoustic Age was, by its nature:
boundless
directionless
horizonless
and charged with emotion.
Words create their own reality by creating their own spaces. This harks back to the Genesis where the spoken word created the world, and "it was good."
With writing, space became bound. Reading each word, one after the other made space
linear
ordered
structured
and rational.
Writing also changed our relationship to cycles, rhythms and timing into a bound relationship within an artificial construct of time.
With the written page, there were:
edges
margins
and sharply defined letters, row after row.
It brought a new way of looking at, and experiencing space - creating time.
It also focused the eye, at the expense of the other senses, isolating us into a visual perspective.
The Gutenberg Press transformed writing into mechanized print. People needed a private space to read - which isolated people from each other. The linear progression of reading, using only the eyes, isolated the eyes from the rest of the body and its senses. This separated classes - the literate from the illiterate, leading to nationalism - a society composed of individuals with private identities and goals. It created its own Galaxy in a way.
Then, four centuries later, the telegraph electrified the mechanized print.
Speech lost the quality that made it part of the culture of acoustic space.
Radio, a powerful extension of speech, created another loss by reducing speech to aural. It is only listened to and only creates the illusion of speech.
Then we get the television, and computers, and now the internet.
The internet is a game changer because there is instant access to everything, and almost everyone, as the computers themselves are getting smaller and smaller. It is opening up our relationship to time and space and re-defining our relationships with the outer world.
Each new technology creates new sensory environments through the amputation of the previous ones - which creates a partial disassociation of sensory life in a sedantary society.
So for those of us who have been on this planet for a while the rapid changes in our environment and our sensory relationship to it, and each other, has moved so fast it has become difficult to keep up.
Here on the forum, we are virtually connected, yet only visually - with words, videos, skype - without our other senses. We can feel a kinship of like-mindedness, yet isolated from each other tactically.
Those around us who are trapped within the television and advertising memes, on their cell phones and social networks, may be more sensory present, but there is a disconnect. With access to so much new information - that is changing rapidly, every single moment - it is even more challenging to have even an opinion.
Factor in the ever changing information on conspiracies, the vast amount of misinformation, and the revealing of secrets and geez..........no wonder we are feeling a "tad bit anti-social."
Re: Has anyone else been feeling a tad mor "antisocial" than "normal "?
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I have a feeling it will touch many.
) And I sense a frustration about people who have not woken up. What about a little more forgiveness and a little less elitism please. We can't all be as cool as we are, right 
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