To say that "the camera cannot lie" is merely to underline the multiple deceits that are now practised in its name.
Marshall McluhanRead
All words, in every language, are metaphors.
Interpretation
Words represent ideas and concepts, but they do so indirectly, like metaphors.
Marshall McLuhan's assertion that all words are metaphors highlights the idea that language is a system of symbols that stand in for deeper meanings and concepts. This perspective encourages us to understand that words are not just literal but also carry connotations and implications that shape our perception of reality.
In practice
In a discussion on linguistics, you might quote McLuhan to emphasize the complexity of language.
To say that "the camera cannot lie" is merely to underline the multiple deceits that are now practised in its name.
A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.
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.
The news automatically becomes the real world for the TV user and is not a substitute for reality, but is itself an immediate reality.
Faced with information overload, we have no alternative but pattern-recognition.
The poet, the artist, the sleuth, whoever sharpens our perception tends to antisocial; rarely 'well adjusted,' he cannot go along with currents and trends.
If people reach perfection they vanish, you know.
Celebrity is a national drama whose characters' parts and plots are written by the tabloids, gossip columnists, websites and interactive buttons. The famous don't actually have to turn up to their own lives at all.
There has been an outpouring of anger and concern because of the actions of George Zimmerman, a private citizen who profiled a young boy and pursued him and tried to confront him, perhaps. But what George Zimmerman did is no different than what police officers do every day as a matter of standard operating procedure.
Everything we do these days - our lust for ever more comfort, pleasure, and distraction, our refusal to engage with the mandates of reality, our fidelity to cults of technology and limitless growth, our narcissistic national exceptionalism - all of this propels us toward the realm where souls abandon all hope.
Voltaire! A name that excites the admiration of men, the malignity of priests. Pronounce that name in the presence of a clergyman, and you will find that you have made a declaration of war.
You are sitting and smoking; you believe that you are sitting in your pipe, and that your pipe is smoking you; you are exhaling yourself in bluish clouds. You feel just fine in this position, and only one thing gives you worry or concern: how will you ever be able to get out of your pipe?
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