A Quote by Marshall McLuhan

The electric age ... established a global network that has much the character of our central nervous system.

Marshall McLuhan

Quote Topics

Age Central Central Nervous System Character Electric Established Global Much Nervous Nervous System Network Our System

Quote Author

Marshall McLuhan
Canadian - Sociologist
July 21, 1911 - December 31, 1980

With the arrival of electric technology, man extended, or set outside himself, a live model of the central nervous system itself. To the degree that this is so, it is a development that suggests a desperate and suicidal autoamputation, as if the central nervous system could no longer depend on the physical organs to be protective buffers against the slings and arrows of outrageous mechanism.

Marshall McLuhan

The wheel is an extension of the foot, the book is an extension of the eye, clothing an extension of the skin, electric circuitry an extension of the central nervous system.

Marshall McLuhan

He smiles so much, I don't think he has a central nervous system.

Lewis Black

Perfect replication is the enemy of any robust system... Lacking a central nervous system much less a brain the parasite is a simple system designed to compromise a very specific target host. The more uniform the host, the more effective the infestation.

Daniel Suarez

It is only the Sahasrara has to grow, not the Spirit. The more sensitive the Sahasrara is, the more it receives the spiritual qualities of the Spirit. Actually the peace is felt in the Sahasrara. The bliss is also felt in the Sahasrara because that is the brain and the brain is the epitome of our nervous system, central nervous system, of consciousness itself.

Nirmala Srivastava

Since with electricity we extend our central nervous system globally, instantly interrelating every human experience.

Marshall McLuhan

My main theme is the extension of the nervous system in the electric age, and thus, the complete break with five thousand years of mechanical technology. This I state over and over again. I do not say whether it is a good or bad thing. To do so would be meaningless and arrogant.

Marshall McLuhan

The nervous system of any age or nation is its creative workers, its artists. And if that nervous system is profoundly disturbed by its environment, the work it produces will inescapably reflect the disturbances, sometimes obliquely and sometimes with violent directness.

Tennessee Williams

I've come to see our central nervous system as a kind of vintage switchboard, all thick foam wires and old-fashioned plugs. The circuitry isn't properly equipped; after a surplus of emotional information the system overloads, the circuit breaks, the board runs dark. That's what shock is.

Darin Strauss

The computer is the most extraordinary of man's technological clothing; it's an extension of our central nervous system. Beside it, the wheel is a mere hula-hoop.

Marshall McLuhan

If globalization is to realise its potential as a force for good, we have to look more closely at the means by which we handle our growing interdependence. We do not have a world government, but we do have an increasingly complex network of institutions that are concerned with global governance. They are central to our future and international human rights law

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Our information network is much better protected than our railroad network, and someone who cracks a system is able to cause far less human damage than someone who derails a train. Why, then, has 'computer crime' caused so much hysteria? Perhaps because the public is so willing - eager, even - to be scared by bogeymen.

Charles Platt

Perhaps of all the most basic elements of music, rhythm most directly affects our central nervous system.

George Crumb

The experience of truth has to be felt on the central nervous system.

Nirmala Srivastava

One hundred years ago, visionary political leaders from the Progressive Era established a system of national forests and parks in our country that are the envy of the world and today are the treasure of an entire nation. Why not a similar, global vision for our generation?