Within “The Medium is the Massage” scholar Marshall McLuhan proactively examines the future of the media landscape. Within the specific passage, pages 92 to 95 (beginning at the word “amateur”), and in the book as a whole, McLuhan conveys the theme of progress, giving his perspectives on the ways in which it manifests itself. The author does so through the literary devises of anecdote, giving real life examples of his perspective on progress and parallelism through diction and syntax, showing the conflicts which arise from change.
Initially, McLuhan demonstrates his complex ideas of progress through providing seemingly counterintuitive anecdotes throughout the passage, which allude to his unconventional perspectives. The first example of the anecdote contains situational irony, in which McLuhan tates “Micheal Faraday, who had little mathematics and no formal schooling… was one of the great founders of modern physics” (92). McLuhan presents the background of a man who would societally be considered non-intellectual, then placing him within the context of being one of the pioneers in a highly crucial field of study. Moreover, alluding to physicists, who are among those who typically lead human understanding into the future, is a symbolically resonant choice of field to quote for such reasons. The effect of this is to illustrate the tendency of progress to oppose societal normality …show more content…
The use of parallelism in McLuhan’s syntax, such as in the line “Professionalism is environmental. Amateurism is anti-environmental” (93), focuses on the clear differences between the types of progress. McLuhan does this in order to create blatant tension in the contrast between opposites, linked so fundamentally together within the sentence structure, which further proves his argument on progress being stilted by humans latching on to old media
Initially, McLuhan demonstrates his complex ideas of progress through providing seemingly counterintuitive anecdotes throughout the passage, which allude to his unconventional perspectives. The first example of the anecdote contains situational irony, in which McLuhan tates “Micheal Faraday, who had little mathematics and no formal schooling… was one of the great founders of modern physics” (92). McLuhan presents the background of a man who would societally be considered non-intellectual, then placing him within the context of being one of the pioneers in a highly crucial field of study. Moreover, alluding to physicists, who are among those who typically lead human understanding into the future, is a symbolically resonant choice of field to quote for such reasons. The effect of this is to illustrate the tendency of progress to oppose societal normality …show more content…
The use of parallelism in McLuhan’s syntax, such as in the line “Professionalism is environmental. Amateurism is anti-environmental” (93), focuses on the clear differences between the types of progress. McLuhan does this in order to create blatant tension in the contrast between opposites, linked so fundamentally together within the sentence structure, which further proves his argument on progress being stilted by humans latching on to old media