I recognise many of those names. I follow them too. I have been fired from my Town crying job as being too colonialist, I have a red coat re enactment uniform Read about it City of Duncan.
I read about it Ben. What a shame. The historical revision and the re-casting of all things Western as nothing more than oppressive colonization is so annoying. This movement shows no sense of balance or context.
I am not finished yet. I will go kicking and screaming. I have local support and I know I do a good job. The Mayor wants a Native in there. Good luck they rarely have the ability or education in the English language to do the job. You have to be an extrovert. Have an application in to John Carpay, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, and will see what he can do. Challenge them!
I expect there are many of us who, like you, find ourselves both agreeing and disagreeing with all the groups we are involved with. My experience has been similar and I'm not completely committed to any group because I can always see how their views are incomplete.
Thank you for sharing your ‘teacher’ list James. I like the depth & breadth of your approach. I read lots of McLuhan right when I was moving from the UK to Canada. Prescient regarding evolution of Media & man merging with it (with resulting fall out across domains). The technology shaping us, which is studied so well by technocrats and educrats. It’s hard for people without a broad grounding as you have (and crucially the appetite to gain that) to see through the foreground stage pantomime spectacle to the deeper purpose of what that’s trying to bring about for those financing it. The secular theological piece is key & New Discourses is laying that out very well. In your library, do you have McLuhan’s ‘The Medium And The Light’?
In Paulo Friere’s writing so much stressing of the necessity to ‘awaken new consciousness’ in the population and via media culture that’s been accomplished whether people realize their ‘religious consciousness’ has been formed or not. Whether they’ve actively engaged, or passively accepted the messaging, they are at this point, either worshipers or heretics. Even the ‘skeptics’ go along with the religion for expediency (again, Friere stated this would be the case) because like it or not, for the sake of compliance, it’s ‘just how things are’ to a great majority unwilling to gain the mental armour, as you’ve done and are now sharing that process with others.
Really looking forward to seeing this broader scope pan out. Great work James 👊
Anyway, you remind me of him a little (the way you think and write).
I think I may interpret McLuhan a little different than you, I'm not sure, we will see. I am trying to extract from McLuhan the thing I think has the most utility, the predictive aspect that comes with understanding his framework and then applying the media tetrad (4 laws of media) thoughtfully.
I see it very much as an extension of political economy - I think McLuhan's media theory has a broad area of overlap with historical materialism. What is interesting is that Harold Innis (who tragically died to young) was a famous 1950s Canadian political economist in the Liberal tradition of political economy. His early work focused on the fur trade in early Canada...he developed the staples theory...but it is late Innis..."Bias of Communication" Innis that was the source of what McLuhan would build on (That and the work of James Joyce, who McLuhan credits as the original media theorist).
I could ramble on and start going into Finnegan's Wake, which apparently according to Marshall, was media theory. He said that Finnegan's Wake is encoded with the entire comprehensive history of humanity...and that it could be the sole document shot out into space so some distant alien race upon finding it floating around in between the various nebula, could have a document that contains everything they would need to know about what happened on earth.
No I haven’t read Chris Nagle, thanks for the recommendation. I found McLuhan’s theories very engaging and enjoyed his writing very much. There are a number of authors, commentators, philosophers I’ve been very deeply drawn to in the past that I have quite a different perspective on now. There are ideas I still ‘feel’ attracted to, even though I no longer rationally agree with them. It’s an odd bridge to stand on between the two.
I recognise many of those names. I follow them too. I have been fired from my Town crying job as being too colonialist, I have a red coat re enactment uniform Read about it City of Duncan.
I read about it Ben. What a shame. The historical revision and the re-casting of all things Western as nothing more than oppressive colonization is so annoying. This movement shows no sense of balance or context.
I am not finished yet. I will go kicking and screaming. I have local support and I know I do a good job. The Mayor wants a Native in there. Good luck they rarely have the ability or education in the English language to do the job. You have to be an extrovert. Have an application in to John Carpay, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, and will see what he can do. Challenge them!
I expect there are many of us who, like you, find ourselves both agreeing and disagreeing with all the groups we are involved with. My experience has been similar and I'm not completely committed to any group because I can always see how their views are incomplete.
Thank you for sharing your ‘teacher’ list James. I like the depth & breadth of your approach. I read lots of McLuhan right when I was moving from the UK to Canada. Prescient regarding evolution of Media & man merging with it (with resulting fall out across domains). The technology shaping us, which is studied so well by technocrats and educrats. It’s hard for people without a broad grounding as you have (and crucially the appetite to gain that) to see through the foreground stage pantomime spectacle to the deeper purpose of what that’s trying to bring about for those financing it. The secular theological piece is key & New Discourses is laying that out very well. In your library, do you have McLuhan’s ‘The Medium And The Light’?
In Paulo Friere’s writing so much stressing of the necessity to ‘awaken new consciousness’ in the population and via media culture that’s been accomplished whether people realize their ‘religious consciousness’ has been formed or not. Whether they’ve actively engaged, or passively accepted the messaging, they are at this point, either worshipers or heretics. Even the ‘skeptics’ go along with the religion for expediency (again, Friere stated this would be the case) because like it or not, for the sake of compliance, it’s ‘just how things are’ to a great majority unwilling to gain the mental armour, as you’ve done and are now sharing that process with others.
Really looking forward to seeing this broader scope pan out. Great work James 👊
Wow you've got a few things figured out yourself! Have you read Chris Nagle? He really blows my mind. He has a website called the Secular Fundamentalist - https://www.writing.com/main/books.php/item_id/2064958-The-Secular-Fundamentalist fbclid=IwAR37ZS1pKmw5gDP8QOLkAeJi_6H5AfpGaARibxmYkAqn_XV_F63k_mgv7R8 -
Anyway, you remind me of him a little (the way you think and write).
I think I may interpret McLuhan a little different than you, I'm not sure, we will see. I am trying to extract from McLuhan the thing I think has the most utility, the predictive aspect that comes with understanding his framework and then applying the media tetrad (4 laws of media) thoughtfully.
I see it very much as an extension of political economy - I think McLuhan's media theory has a broad area of overlap with historical materialism. What is interesting is that Harold Innis (who tragically died to young) was a famous 1950s Canadian political economist in the Liberal tradition of political economy. His early work focused on the fur trade in early Canada...he developed the staples theory...but it is late Innis..."Bias of Communication" Innis that was the source of what McLuhan would build on (That and the work of James Joyce, who McLuhan credits as the original media theorist).
I could ramble on and start going into Finnegan's Wake, which apparently according to Marshall, was media theory. He said that Finnegan's Wake is encoded with the entire comprehensive history of humanity...and that it could be the sole document shot out into space so some distant alien race upon finding it floating around in between the various nebula, could have a document that contains everything they would need to know about what happened on earth.
Just quickly glancing at Chris Nagle’s contents list. You were right. I like 😁
No I haven’t read Chris Nagle, thanks for the recommendation. I found McLuhan’s theories very engaging and enjoyed his writing very much. There are a number of authors, commentators, philosophers I’ve been very deeply drawn to in the past that I have quite a different perspective on now. There are ideas I still ‘feel’ attracted to, even though I no longer rationally agree with them. It’s an odd bridge to stand on between the two.