This article discusses the views of M. McLuhan on the phenomenon of alienation, which have been developed in the concept of a “global village”. In this regard, the analysis of the author’s books “The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Becoming of a Printing Person” (1962), “Understanding the Media: External Extensions of a Person” (1964), “War and Peace in a Global Village” (1968) was made. It is noted that in the concept of M. McLuhan, the modern world due to the development of electronic mass media technologies is considered as some return to the situation of preliterate society, when there were no large borders and distances between people

Bortnik, I.

Skorodyonok, A.

Digital Library of Polotsk State University (Репозиторий Полоцкого государственного университета)

ELECTRONIC COLLECTED MATERIALS OF XII JUNIOR RESEARCHERS’ CONFERENCE           2020 Edication, Social Studies, Law, Gender Studies  144UDC 796.01  THE PHENOMENON OF EXCLUSION IN THE CONCEPT OF THE “GLOBAL VILLAGE” BY M. MCLUHAN  A. SKORODYONOK, I. BORTNIK Polotsk State University, Belarus   This article discusses the views of M. McLuhan on the phenomenon of alienation, which have been developed in the concept of a “global village”. In this regard, the analysis of the author’s books “The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Becoming of a Printing Person” (1962), “Understanding the Media: External Extensions of a Person” (1964), “War and Peace in a Global Village” (1968) was made. It is noted that in the concept of M. McLuhan, the modern world due to the development of electronic mass media technologies is considered as some return to the situation of preliterate society, when there were no large borders and distances between people.   One of the most famous scientists studying the phenomenon of alienation in the twentieth century is the Canadian philosopher, philologist and literary critic Marshall McLuhan. In his works, M. McLuhan presented his own culturological concept of the development of communication technologies, called the "global village", which made a significant contribution to understanding the processes of formation and development of modern mass society. The term “global village” is used as a metaphor for a community of people united by electronic telecommunications. In these communications, the physical distance between the interlocutors does not play a significant role for communication, all kinds of boundaries are erased, including space and time, and rapprochement of cultures and values takes place. In connection with the development of technology, people have the opportunity with much greater speed to perceive and find information, respond to changes in the world. According to M. McLuhan, this process actively involves people in each other's affairs. Using modern technology, people interact in such a way as if they live in "one village." They consciously or unconsciously increasingly invade each other's life, reasoning about everything they saw and heard [1, p.333-345]. For the first time, the concept of a “global village” was reflected in the work of M. McLuhan “The Gutenberg Galaxy”. In this book, the following main questions raised by the author can be distinguished: What is a person of printed culture? How do the media affect human consciousness? What is the role of the media in creating a “global village”? M. McLuhan chooses a special format for his book, which is a continuous text with aphoristic inclusions that fix the main ideas and conclusions. The main part of this work is the division by M. McLuhan of the development of civilization into four stages. This separation is based on the development of mass communication: oral, handwritten, printing society, electronic era. If for Marx the class struggle is the engine of history, then for M. McLuhan such an engine is a change of technology, which causes changes in the way of communication. The Canadian philosopher was probably one of the first scientists who noticed the pattern of changing the nature of society depending on the type of communication. Before a person could invent writing, he was surrounded only by spoken language. Such a world, called the “audio universe,” could only be known through hearing. Thus, at the first stage of the formation of world history, a listening person was formed. This is a tribal period with a predominance of oral speech as a means of communication in the pre-alphabetic world. The invention of the alphabet has shifted the angle of perception from hearing to vision - humanity has entered the mechanistic era, which continues to this day. According to M. McLuhan, the start of this technological leap was the quill pen, and its epicenter was the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg, which was an axial turn in the development of both the method of communication and society as a whole. Thus began a new era of humanity, which was already created by the man who looked. This era of typographic printing with the predominance of the printed word over the oral form of communication. A significant role in all this formation was played by the invention of the alphabet. This fundamentally changed both the life and thinking of people, as they began to think more logically and rationally. However, this process is characterized not only by positive aspects. So, in connection with the innovations that appeared, such negative phenomena as fragmentation of society began, and subsequently the alienation of man: the development of the press significantly changed and made life easier for people, which allowed each individual to comprehend the world independently, without the help of collective consciousness; he became an independent cognitive organism. That is, if earlier people received information from each other, while actively interacting, now they have the opportunity to recognize it independently, which has reduced the interaction between them. In addition, the book became the first standard reproducible product, that is, a product of mass ELECTRONIC COLLECTED MATERIALS OF XII JUNIOR RESEARCHERS’ CONFERENCE           2020 Edication, Social Studies, Law, Gender Studies  145consumption. In mass consumption, one can also notice alienation, since mass culture is a standardized culture, that is, the identity of a person is lost in it; there is a certain trend and everyone is trying to imitate it [1, p.18-20]. In the XX century, a new stage in the development of society begins, this time related to electricity: “The electric circuit crushed time and space, plunging each of us into the ocean of other people's concerns. She has reinstated global dialogue on a global scale. And the main news that she brought to people was the news of Universal Change ”[1, p.27]. This era is the quintessence of the previous ones; this is the era of the person listening and watching, which is characterized by the predominance of audiovisual communication, increasing the intellectual abilities and creative potential of the individual. M. McLuhan believed that the electronic revolution will completely change human life. Initially, electronic technology performed the connecting functions. They created a new stage of social communication in which the geographical, economic framework ceases to exist, thereby facilitating the establishment of contacts between different peoples and sectors of society. Information technology, combined with audiovisual means, creates a whole world of behavioral models that constantly, daily at work and in everyday life surround a person and program his activities on an ever-increasing scale. This is characteristic of the first stage of the communication revolution [1, p.27]. The second stage of the communication revolution is associated with three significant innovations: the introduction of satellite communications, the creation of fiber optic cables and cable networks, digital electronic devices using microprocessors and integrated circuits for high-speed reception and transmission of information. This opens up for any individual who has an input and output device and is included in a single communication system, free access from almost anywhere in the world to databases and all known knowledge, thus creating new tribal relations. Such technologies lead to a fundamentally new state of civilization and culture - to global hyperintellect. Computerization creates a new world in which computer knowledge and mastery is the second literacy that enhances a person’s intellectual and creative abilities. The main driving force behind the new revolution was electronic media, and especially television. It was television, according to the philosopher, that returned human society in the pre-literary period, to the “global village”, where everyone has access to information, and they can do it instantly. In this new world, man can no longer exist as he used to be slowly, deliberately and consistently. In this world, a person does not have time for a full analysis of the situation, and the main tool that can come to his aid is intuition [1, p. 154-170]. However, the “Gutenberg galaxy”, which has come a long way of development, has in time passed into the compression phase: “Over the centuries of the era of mechanization, we have expanded the capabilities of our body in space. Today, after a century of electronic technologies, we have the opportunity to extend our central nervous system to the whole planet, which leads to the abolition of concepts such as space and time. And at a fast pace we are approaching the final stage of this “human spread” - a technological imitation of consciousness, when the creative process of cognition ceases to be the estate of the individual and becomes a collective process ”[1, p. 179]. From all this, M. McLuhan concludes that in a modern world filled with electronic communications, space and time will inevitably shrink. After this, a new era will appear in which comprehension of the surrounding reality will not require reason, but will be purely intuitive [1, p.186-190]. Thus, the author claims that with the development of technology, people acquire new opportunities that make their lives easier, however, along with this, these technologies contribute to the alienation of people from each other and from themselves. With each subsequent development of communication technologies, from the printing press to the Internet, people need less and less to interact with other people. However, technologies are developing so fast that soon a person will stop thinking on their own - modern technologies will do it for him, which alienates people not only from each other, but also from themselves [1, p.212-230]. Another important work of the author on the topic of alienation is “Understanding the media: external extensions of man.” As noted earlier, M. McLuhan gives a significant role in the history of mankind as a whole, including in the formation of the "global village", as a means of communication and media. However, in this book, the author went further and combined communication tools with a person. Electronic communication technologies were presented here as a means of "expanding and continuing" the human nervous system. Thus, in a new society, man is inseparable from the means of communication and is himself, which serves as a vivid manifestation of alienation. In the 13th chapter of the work under consideration, M. McLuhan presents the concept of housing. According to the author, the home is another means of expanding the human body in order to preserve and redirect heat and energy. Those. the house is the spatial expansion of one person, and the city is the collective expansion of the physical organs. As an example, the author cites the work of James Joyce "Ulysses", in which the components of the city are compared with the organs of the human body [2, p. 63-67]. In this chapter, M. McLuhan compares the dwellings of man of the preliterate era with the dwellings of man of the written era. In this regard, he gives an explanation for the change of round buildings to square ones. ELECTRONIC COLLECTED MATERIALS OF XII JUNIOR RESEARCHERS’ CONFERENCE           2020 Edication, Social Studies, Law, Gender Studies  146People of the preliterate era were very close to nature, and therefore the rounded structure symbolized the continuation of the cosmos. For example, in China and India, houses were designed as an act of praising a deity. But the written man has already lost touch with the cosmos, has ceased to feel a connection with nature, and therefore is fencing off his home from the outside world. As a result of this, dwellings of a rectangular, square shape appear, and the erection of walls inside them is determined by the tendency of a civilized person to fragmentation. The same can explain the replacement of the dome with Gothic forms in architecture, which has always been considered an indicator of the worldview of people [2, p. 63-67]. In this one can find the process of alienation of people: initially people were one with nature, but with the development of new communication technologies they gradually lost this connection and closed themselves, fencing their space not only with psychological and emotional barriers, but also quite tangible, such as fences and rectangular walls. As proof that often only one external factor is enough to change the way of life and thinking of people, M. McLuhan cites the example of the Eskimo’s home - the igloo. The needle owes its shape to the primus. Initially, the Eskimos lived in stone houses and were engaged in gathering. The igloo also appeared in the everyday life of the Eskimos with the advent of a white man and his portable stove. Initially, it was a hunting lodge, however, later it began to be used as a housing. Thus, we see how one factor can seriously change the life of an entire nation [2, p. 63-67]. The author finds a similar story in the Renaissance, when coal mining opened up new opportunities for people living in cold countries. As an example, the author points out that after the production of glass was established, the living quarters became larger, the ceilings were higher. Life also changed tremendously during the 20th century with the advent of electricity. The invention of electric elevators, lighting - all this radically transformed our understanding of what a dwelling should be like. With the help of light, the division into "day - night", "underground - ground" disappeared. The spatial change in every aspect of labor and production is obvious. According to M. McLuhan, just lighting and heating played a decisive role, both in the formation of the home and clothing. The fact is that both housing and clothing are means of expanding heat control mechanisms, and lighting and heating give new forms and scale to the principles by which these mechanisms work. Thus, clothing and housing are means of communication. The main focus of the scientist is on electric lighting. Electricity created a space without walls, day without night. Electric light pushes the limits of our capabilities, says M. McLuhan, because now people have ceased to depend on the change of day and night and can perform the same actions at different times of the day. According to M. McLuhan, lighting creates a new world of feelings and perceptions, which disappears when the lights are turned off. Thus, light is an independent communication system in which the medium is the message itself [2, p. 346-380]. The work of M. McLuhan, co-authored with Quentin Fiore, “War and Peace in a Global Village”, examines the changes in the structure of social relations due to the steady development of global communication technologies, primarily electronic mass media. In this work, the authors describe the concept of a “global village”, which to a greater extent reflects processes that are characteristic not of the time the work arose, but of the modern era, connected with the Internet. In this work, M. McLuhan puts forward the thesis that the advent of new technologies changes a person’s sensory perception of the environment, destroys his self-identification and forces him to adapt and view the world in a “rear-view mirror”. The author himself calls this process of transition from one sensory perception to another self-amputation [3, p.145]. Self-amputation causes pain and cultural spleen in a person, according to the author. The author talks about the loss of human sensory abilities that occurred as a result of the advent of new technologies and compares this process with an amputated organ, which still causes the so-called phantom pains. Thus, modern communication technologies become an extension of the human body, part of his nervous system. At the same time, people want to restore the lost part of their identity through innovation. The mismatch between human aspirations for identity and reality is the socio-psychological cause of the instability of the main social institutions, conflicts and wars, which in turn lead to the emergence of new, even more advanced technologies. Hence, the author expresses the thesis that the modern social system is always ready for war [3, p. 131].  Summing up, it can be noted that the “global village” in the concept of M. McLuhan is the modern world, with the development of electronic media technologies it has returned to the situation of preliterate (tribal) society, when there were no large borders and distances between people. Currently, the Internet is actively contributing to this situation, which erodes state and territorial borders and makes it possible to get quick access to an unlimited number of data, communicate with any, even far-reaching people. At the same time, these processes are accompanied by the phenomenon of alienation, which was characteristic of all stages of social ELECTRONIC COLLECTED MATERIALS OF XII JUNIOR RESEARCHERS’ CONFERENCE           2020 Edication, Social Studies, Law, Gender Studies  147evolution, coupled with changes in communication technologies. The transition to each new stage in the development of mass media was accompanied by the loss by people of a certain part of their identity (“self-amputation”): with the loss of people a part of their identity, the world changed dramatically for them, but at the same time people are able to fully realize only the world that they have already lost with the transition to a new stage in the development of communication technologies. In the modern world, people are beginning to perceive new communication technologies as part of themselves, while not understanding who they really are. In this situation, people strive to restore self-identity, but this only leads to the development of more and more new technologies that contribute to the further alienation of man.  REFERENCES  1. Маклюэн, М. Галактика Гутенберга: Сотворение человека печатной культуры: [пер.c англ.] / М. Маклюэн. – К.: Ника Центр, 2003. – 432 с. 2. Маклюэн, М. Понимание медиа: Внешние расширения человека: [пер.c англ.] / М. Маклюэн. – М.: «КАНОН-пресс-Ц», 2003. – 464 с. 3. Маклюэн, М. Война и мир в Глобальной деревне: [пер.c англ.] / М. Маклюэн, К. Фиоре. – М.: АСТ: Астрель, 2012. – 219 с.    

The Phenomenon of Exclusion in the Concept of the “Global Village” by M. Mcluhan

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The Phenomenon of Exclusion in the Concept of the “Global Village” by M. Mcluhan

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