To say that "the camera cannot lie" is merely to underline the multiple deceits that are now practised in its name.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes how new ideas in large industries are often quickly criticized or rejected, likening the process to eliminating harmful threats.
Marshall McLuhan's quote highlights the tendency of big industries to be resistant to innovation. He compares the management of ideas within these companies to a laboratory where potentially harmful concepts are quickly identified and suppressed, suggesting that the fear of change can stifle creativity and progress. This perspective warns about the dangers of environments that do not foster new thinking and the societal implications of such practices.
Themes
InnovationIndustryIdeasResistanceCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a business meeting discussing the importance of fostering creativity, one might say, 'As McLuhan noted, new ideas in big industry are often clobbered at once.'
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Faced with information overload, we have no alternative but pattern-recognition.
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The poet, the artist, the sleuth, whoever sharpens our perception tends to antisocial; rarely 'well adjusted,' he cannot go along with currents and trends.
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We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us.
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