Marshall McLuhan
Canadian communication theorist, author of Understanding Media
Also known as: McLuhan, Marshal McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) was a Canadian media theorist whose central claim — that the dominant communication medium of an age structures cognitive and political life — runs parallel to Quigley's own weapons-systems and cognitive-systems argument. Quigley engages him largely as a critic: McLuhan, in Quigley's reading, popularized real insights but reduced them to slogans that flattened the serious analytical work.
McLuhan as a global verbalizer
Quigley reviewed McLuhan's War and Peace in the Global Village (with Quentin Fiore) in the Washington Sunday Star of 15 September 1968 under the title "McLuhan as a Global Verbalizer" (Book Reviews 47). His framing is direct: "The popularity of Marshall McLuhan — or, more accurately, his ability to make money — is not a function of his value as a teacher or writer, but is rather an indication of the confusions and corruptions of the society he adorns. Of these he is a perfect symbol. McLuhan is an example of a Celtic verbalizer" (Book Reviews 48). The piece groups McLuhan with Robert Ardrey and C. D. Darlington as "contemporary charlatans peddling nostrums" (Book Reviews 14).
The global village critique
In the Quigley Lectures Quigley pushes back on McLuhan's most famous concept directly. There are, he tells students, structural "factors to permit the achievement of any 'global village,' a McLuhan myth which is typical of McLuhan's efforts to please the contemporary institutionalized establishment. Any large social aggregate, especially a highly politicized one as a Universal Empire must be, has to operate through artifacts, general rules, abstractions, permanent" structures rather than the face-to-face village medium McLuhan implied (Lectures 55). The critique is the more pointed because Quigley's own civilizational scheme places communications technology — alongside weapons systems — as a primary driver of historical change, but he separates that analytical framework sharply from McLuhan's aphoristic, advertising-friendly presentation of it.
Cited in
- book-reviews · p. 14 Quigley
Other contemporary charlatans peddling nostrums, like Robert Ardrey, Marshal McLuhan, and C. D. Darlington.
- book-reviews · p. 47 Quigley 1968-09-15
'McLuhan as a Global Verbalizer', a review by Carroll Quigley in The Washington Sunday Star, September 15, 1968, of two books: WAR AND PEACE IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE, by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore.
- book-reviews · p. 48 Quigley 1968-09-15
The popularity of Marshall McLuhan — or, more accurately, his ability to make money — is not a function of his value as a teacher or writer, but is rather an indication of the confusions and corruptions of the society he adorns.
- quigley-lectures · p. 55 Quigley
To permit the achievement of any 'global village,' a McLuhan myth which is typical of McLuhan's efforts to please the contemporary institutionalized establishment. Any large social aggregate, especially a highly politicized one as a Universal Empire must be, has to operate through artifacts, general rules, abstractions.