| “Trying to isolate us in a dimension called loneliness leading us into the trap believe in their power but not in ourselves piling us with guilt always taking the blame greed chasing out the balance trying to isolate us in a dimension called loneliness” - John Trudell, from “Look At Us” One of the key messages of Marshall McLuhan's prescient 1962 book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man is the hypnotic effect on much of humanity as a result of Gutenberg's printing press machine. The effect of that 'primitive technology' is waning with the advent of the Internet and other gadgets which afford the abilities to both wake us up via global inter-relating and/or keep us asleep via fascist algorithms and vapid distractions. The vapidity has expanded exponentially since Bruce Springsteen's 1992 song “fifty-seven channels … and nothin' on,” from the appropriately titled album for this essay, “Human Touch.” According to McLuhan, with the printed word and ensuing “print culture,” the visual sense became dominant at the expense of the other senses, particularly “audio-tactile” though that reference is to the preceding manuscript culture. Since the so-called beginning of time, all the senses are vital for living harmoniously with one's surroundings. Strikingly, McLuhan gives the actual formula for hypnosis (from “hypnos – sleep”) via technology: “But it is necessary to understand the power and thrust of technologies to isolate the senses and thus to hypnotize society. The formula for hypnosis is “one sense at a time.” And now technology possesses the power to hypnotize because it isolates the senses.” [1]That statement, from nearly sixty years ago, is worth a field of study and analysis yet for the practical purposes of brevity here: my interpretation is that much of humanity's consciousness became fixated on the visual, losing touch, literally, with touch, and hearing, smell, taste, along with other aspects of visual such as insight and dreams-visions. At least initially, a vast chunk of the print culture visual fixation can be attributed to the perfect storm of Gutenberg's press, bibles, and seafaring. The global spread of enforced Christianity – abetted by the “Good Book” with its “word of God” – more then decimated Indigenous and other non-Christian peoples; the word “decimate” whose Roman root means “killing of one in ten.” Enforced Christianity ignored the Jesus memo: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Human touchscreen Nowadays we touch a plethora of plastics and whatever screens are made of, typing away with typographic messages, tapping keyboards, screens small and large, tapping for dollars at ATMs and for pre-packaged groceries, tapping to confirm package addresses at post offices, touching plastic credit cards and plastic packaging ― more recently followed by incessant hand-sanitizing. One of the differences between picking string beans from a vine and opening a can is that, from can to pan you never have to touch the string beans rather simply ingest them; the intimacy of touch and relating gets lost, along with the conscious connection with the main sources of the string beans: Earth, Water, Wind and Sun. Gadgets, along with commodification, have calloused our ways of relating emotionally and communicating. One of the greatest worst examples of callous hypnosis of our times has been the Global War OF Terror (now morphed into “Great Power Competition”). Stats from a recent report attest to that: “...the death toll of the so-called war on terror at 801,000 and the price tag at $6.4 trillion” and “Ultimately, displacing 37 million—and perhaps as many as 59 million—raises the question of who bears responsibility for repairing the damage inflicted on those displaced.” [2]Nowadays people can barely have a conversation without mentioning covid-19 yet for the past 19 years how often have you heard people mention “these strange, surreal times,” the death tolls, the plight of the displaced, the big business of destruction, the sheer waste of financial energy . . . while the multitudes scrape by. Enough with the snooze-button Though print culture's dominance began to wane with photography then motion-pictures then TV and now screens everywhere, the hypnosis continues because of the isolation of the visual. And considering the above stats, such distancing from direct experience is hindering the ability for grieving and healing, and stopping further recklessness. So I asked myself: How to un-hypnotize? Isolation hypnotizes. To un-isolate and un-hypnotize, I'm choosing to exercise my senses more. Driving to the store, for the first time in a while I felt the leathery-skinned steering wheel rather than simply holding it, and when talking with people, truly listening to the voice, not just what's being said but the sounds of the voice, the tone, timbre, cadence, lilt ― what's not being said. The senses serve as direct gateways with the living-beings and experiences all around us. The scent of fresh-baked bread makes me want to eat a slice more than a barrage of indirect advertisements. Our senses will continue to be bombarded by unsavory influences yet each of us has the ability for un-hypnosis and re-awakening. Whether seeing photos online or directly dealing with the smoky air, the sensory experiences of the West Coast forest fires are un-hypnotizing many. The Nature-beings are supplying some intense wake-up calls up because we as a species have been too lazy to wake ourselves up. Now we must do our part and participate, of which another key aspect is engaging the intuition or sixth sense, a common sense not restricted to women and psychics. Participation, whether with fellow human-beings or talking to and touching your houseplants, wards off loneliness ― and no longer can the hypnotists coax you to sleep when the shackles of loneliness are shattered. NOTES: [1] The Gutenberg Galaxy (Signet Books) p. 322. [2] 'Horrifically Catastrophic': Report Finds So-Called US War on Terror Has Displaced as Many as 59 Million People” Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is an essayist and resident poet at Axis of Logic. In addition to his work as a writer and small press publisher, he travels a holistic mystic pathway staying in touch with Turtle Island. See his new book of nonfiction with a poetic touch, “photo albums of the heart-mind”. © Copyright 2020 by AxisofLogic.com This material is available for republication as long as reprints include verbatim copy of the article in its entirety, respecting its integrity. Reprints must cite the author and Axis of Logic as the original source including a "live link" to the article. Thank you! |