Saturday, January 08, 2011

Example

Do you occasionally have difficulty in grasping a complexity that is expressed in a simple meme? I know I do. I don't think I ever fully understood the phrase, "the medium is the message." Everyone else in the world seems to know what that means but for me it simply doesn't register much information.

Here's one though that is easy to understand. "Style over substance."

It is about a strutting temporarily upon the stage, "sound and fury, signifying nothing." I guess Shakespeare was better at condensing than McLuhan.

Style Over Substance

How many Americans are out of work? What's the number now? Figures vary but a consensus number puts it around 14 million.

So Junior Jackson, whose total qualification for Congress seems to be his name, wants all of those unemployed to send him a copy of their resume. He isn't going to do a damn thing about them. He freely admits cluelessness on solutions. Lord knows he's never had a real job himself, so how would he have a fix.

But this huge stack of meaningless paper is going to symbolize something to someone somewhere and therefore make it look as though he has done something of significance.

Which brings to mind the Signifying Monkey and an influence from my college years:

3 comments:

Kanani said...

I hate grandstanding like that!

an Donalbane said...

It sounds a lot like "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma¹" (perhaps boxed in a conundrum?).

Wouldn't that be like a TurDucKen?

Yeah, I think you cut to the essence of what McLuhan was trying to express.


¹ W. Churchill, 1939

Alex L said...

"The medium is the message".

Yeah, that one puzzled me too when I first heard it on an episode of the show "Mad Men". Joan, the sexy and promiscuous office manager, says this phrase to a newly-hired secretary. I think what Joan meant was that a woman's looks ("the medium") was enough for her to get what she wants ("the message") in a world run by men, which kind of goes along with her character in the show. So, "style over substance" in a way.