In the week that Big Brother once again pokes its nasty head out of room 101 here’s some words from Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media pp 67:

Having extended or translated our central nervous system into the electromagnetic technology, it is but a further stage to transfer our consciousness to the computer world as well. Then, at least, we shall be able to program consciousness in such wise that it cannot be numbed nor distracted by the Narcissus illusions of the entertainment world that beset mankind when he encounters himself extended in his own gimmickry.

If the work of the city is the remaking or translating of man into a more suitable form than his nomadic ancestors achieved, then might not our current translation of our entire lives into the spiritual form of informations seem to make of the entire globe, and of the human family, a single consciousness?

Adding McLuhan’s two points together: if we get social we get rid of Big Brother and the rest of our navel gazing “reality culture”. Yet it could be argued that “reality” media is the apex of media development in the four decades since McLuhan wrote the above. It’s not an argument I’m going to make right now though. That’s one for Andy Duncan over at Channel 4.