Exploring Identity and Technology through the Lens of Marshall McLuhan

Series Four

This episode of 'The New Abnormal' podcast features 'poet for hire' Andrew McLuhan, who also just happens to be the grandson of media-theorist Marshall McLuhan and son of Dr Eric McLuhan. He writes, teaches, coaches and consults about culture and technology from a McLuhan perspective. We therefore discuss his work regarding his exploration, documenting and inventorying the library of Marshall McLuhan (which UNESCO named as part of its 'Memory of the World' registry) and why he views the relationship between his grandfather and father as akin to that of Plato and Aristotle. Along the way, James Joyce and the French symbolists get a mention, as does Trump.  (You don't often see those in the same sentence.)  Naturally, we talk about all things pattern-recognition, identity and global-village related, during this 'dynamic refresher' on the thinking of Marshall McLuhan. Which gives me the perfect opportunity to repeat that epic statement "in a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium in the message".