Post #1992719
2026-03-29 21:20 UTC
@ephemeral IIRC McLuhan talked about media as extensions of the human senses. The brain would be the exception that processes sensory stimuli? I should read up on McLuhan.
The important technology (let's just embrace that term for now) of books would be to convey meaning. Over distances, over time. That is also close to one definition of culture, passing on knowledge to others. So in more than one sense, books are a technology underpinning culture as well.
Replies (1)
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@ephemeral@mograph.social 2026-03-30 07:53
@haverholm yeah I have a memory of McLuhan writing something like that too. Heidegger and Haraway both suggested this too, with slight nuance on how they meant it. You could also take another definition of technology as harbinger of violence, and again books could qualify (much as I love them, they serve this purpose too). This tangling of culture and technology in a book is an interesting point though. An individual book might be a part of culture, and books might be a technology?