The Notion of Roles

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art and the group on 10 November 2015.

Installing folding tops at Ford's Highland Park Plant, 1915

I think we're both touching different parts of the same elephant!

McLuhan blamed industrialization for homogenizing us, and industrialization is a byproduct of the age of print. Print creates centralized government and bureaucracy, but it fragments psychically in that we read alone and in silence, which creates the primacy of the individual instead of group-oriented tribal thought. Industrialization gives us jobs where the tribal mindset gives us roles, and roles allow for greater expression than fragmented jobs. But tribes also live in a state of nearly constant warfare and tend to reject pluralistic viewpoints. Literate man is more open-minded. Literate man overheated is industrial man, who tends to conform. Electronic man tends to position himself in the tribe of his choice, then go to war.

Henry Ford wouldn't partake in the digital retribalizing impulse, but there is definitely a lot of engagement with social Darwinism and the segregation of people into distinct tribes with a goal of pitting them against each other for self-serving ends. There is an element of masterminding group conflict for personal gain that seems lodestoneish to me.

To get back of the idea of roles, these are how the tribe, in McLuhan's terms, express diversity. Belief in tribes is supposed to be orthodox and relational. Beowulf identifies himself as Beowulf, thane of King Hygelac of the Danes, son of Ecgtheow. Odysseus tells Polyphemus his name is Odysseus, King of Ithaca, son of Laertes. If you ask a tribal person why he doesn't steal, he says my people are not thieves. A literate person says I am not a thief. A digital person says I don't feel like it. If I am an eccentric member of the tribe, the tribe finds a role for me, probably as priest, artist, or fool. If I am violent, I'm a warrior. If I'm scholarly, I'm a wise man or advisor. In this regard, everybody can support the same values despite individual charisms, and everyone can value difference. The tribal values are the same; the ways of serving them vary, and everyone depends on the differences in roles. That is a different approach than the industrial vision in which the jobs are the jobs and you conform to them, quit, get fired, or find a new job. It's a sign of change, though, that business keeps on talking about getting everybody on the right seat of the bus; that's a sign that business is embracing the notion of roles.

I agree that social media should probably start leaning more toward the ear. That would explain the ascendancy of video and the archaic feel of email. I think the print aspect of words and images is part relic, partially something closer to the hieroglyph. That would explain the transition from the emoticon to the emoji. I also think the short sentences we get from Twitter thought are like grunts—the little brother equivalent of newspeak. The content tends to polarize, and for McLuhan, the tendency toward polarization would be the form itself—the medium is the message. I see a parallel between the 140-character message, the advertising slogan, and the battle cry.

In some form, if McLuhan is correct, as print becomes obsolete, it should find new life as art. Of course, I'm reminded of Liza's word art.