To say that "the camera cannot lie" is merely to underline the multiple deceits that are now practised in its name.
Marshall McluhanRead
An administrator in a bureaucratic world is a man who can feel big by merging his non-entity in an abstraction. A real person in touch with real things inspires terror in him.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the contrast between bureaucratic individuals who find significance in abstraction and those who connect with reality.
Marshall McLuhan's quote suggests that bureaucrats may derive a sense of importance from their roles within an abstract system, losing touch with genuine human experiences. In contrast, individuals who engage with the tangible and real aspects of life can evoke discomfort or fear in those who prefer the safety of abstraction, emphasizing a fundamental disconnect between different ways of engaging with the world.
Themes
BureaucracyAbstractionRealityFearAdministrationHuman Experience
In practice
Example use cases
During a seminar on leadership, this quote can be used to illustrate the dangers of losing touch with reality in favor of bureaucratic structures.
More from Marshall Mcluhan
All quotes →A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.
Marshall McluhanRead
In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.
Marshall McluhanRead
The news automatically becomes the real world for the TV user and is not a substitute for reality, but is itself an immediate reality.
Marshall McluhanRead
Faced with information overload, we have no alternative but pattern-recognition.
Marshall McluhanRead
The poet, the artist, the sleuth, whoever sharpens our perception tends to antisocial; rarely 'well adjusted,' he cannot go along with currents and trends.
Marshall McluhanRead
Similar quotes
What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good.
AristotleRead
I believe in nothing that I cannot touch, kiss, embrace.... The rest is only hearsay.
Edward AbbeyRead
Submitting to censorship is to enter the seductive world of 'The Giver': the world where there are no bad words and no bad deeds. But it is also the world where choice has been taken away and reality distorted. And that is the most dangerous world of all.
Lois LowryRead
Even in the era of AIDS, sex raises no unique moral issues at all. Decisions about sex may involve considerations about honesty, concern for others, prudence, and so on, but there is nothing special about sex in this respect, for the same could be said of decisions about driving a car. (In fact, the moral issues raised by driving a car, both from an environmental and from a safety point of view, are much more serious than those raised by sex.)
Peter SingerRead
Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.
Chinua AchebeRead
Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
Edmund BurkeRead