Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) June 30, 2011: In The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (University of Toronto Press, 1962). Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) borrows the basic thesis about Western cultural history and shifts in communication media that his former graduate student and life-long friend Walter J. Ong, S.J. (1912-2003) works with in Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (Harvard University Press, 1958). But in addition to quoting Ong extensively, McLuhan amplifies Ong's basic thesis with material of his own choosing. Moreover, McLuhan chooses to present his thought in an experimental way by using boldface captions in different type sizes to signal his various short subsections. Furthermore, he experiments with shifts in tone, perhaps most notably in the captions.
Ong reviewed McLuhan's 1962 book in the Jesuit-sponsored magazine America, volume 107, number 24 (September 15, 1962): pages 743, 747. Ong's review is reprinted in An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (Hampton Press, 2002, pages 307-308), which is the version I will cite here for page references.
Toward the end of his review, Ong says, "If the human community is to retain meaningful possession of the knowledge it is accumulating, breakthroughs to syntheses of a new order are absolutely essential. McLuhan aids one such breakthrough into a new interiority, which will have to include studies of communications not merely as an adjunct or sequel to human knowledge, but as this knowledge's form and condition. . . . What further syntheses [beyond McLuhan's] lie ahead remains to be seen. But we shall have to work, as has the author of The Gutenberg Galaxy, to open all the sweeping vistas we can" (page 308).
Ong himself worked to open all the sweeping vistas he could in his own subsequent books and articles.
But we might examine certain points that Ong makes in the quoted sentences by imagining some people playing the role of the devil's advocate and objecting to Ong's claims.
The devil's advocate might say, "No, we do not need breakthroughs to syntheses of a new order. So we do not need McLuhan or Ong to come to our aid."
The devil's advocate might say, "No, we do not need to retain meaningful possession of the knowledge that we are accumulating. Ong's use of the term "meaningful possession' just shows a tendency toward controlling. But we do not need to get our accumulating knowledge under control. We're free spirits, and we don't like control."
The devil's advocate might say, "No, we do not need to study how shifts in communication media have influenced the form and condition of human knowledge. Who cares how shifts in communication media influence the form and condition of human knowledge? We don't."
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