Marshall McLuhan: Speech by Fr. Dr. K. M. George

“Marshall McLuhan has come back to Kottayam”, the land of “Kerala Gutenberg.” Rev. Fr. K.M. George started his Sukumar Azhikode Lecture series today at DC Books Auditorium with his simple but insightful talk on McLuhan’s contributions. Prof PP Raveendran chaired the session. Sri KM Venugopal was the discussant. The widely debated dictum of McLuhan, “The medium is the message” was the focal point of discussion. McLuhan himself explains this saying “that the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.” Prof Raveendran and Vengopal initiated follow up discussions. Venugopal brought our attention to McLuhan’s observation that “Schizophrenia may be a necessary consequence of literacy.” Venu reminded that it is high time we substituted ‘literacy’ with ‘creativity’ in our educational mission. He was referring to the logical consequences of Time-space compression.’