Subjective Perception & the Objective World

One of the key theories of Marshall McLuhan is that technology and the way we relate to and view technology shape our way of thinking about the world. In his discussion of phenomenology, David Abram suggests something similar in that he finds that language shapes how we view the world. Both see a connection between our subjective perception and the objective world we perceive. Both would also agree that our perceptions are neither completely subjective or completely objective. We might think they are subjective, but McLuhan says we are shaped by the technologies we use and by the way those technologies extend our perceptions outside the body. Abram follows the phenomenology of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty and accepts the notion that perception is participation. If this idea is extended to consciousness as such, it could lead to the conception of the allencompassing interconnected consciousness, which McLuhan also discusses as he finds that our technologies link us in unforeseen ways. However, McLuhan has a very different conception of what is the cause and what the effect in terms of changes in perception--Abram emphasizes everyday perception as the primary perception, while McLuhan sees such perception as completely altered by technological potential. We can see how both theories might apply to the cool medium of the printed word in Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451.

Abram's approach is part of a continuing argument about whether objective truth is even possib

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thon spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the book pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history (Bradbury 3). In Fahrenheit 451, Montag is exposed to a past that has been lost to all those who cannot read--they have no sense of history because they live only in the present. Readers, on the other hand, do have links to the past, and they therefore are not condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past but instead can learn. The society of which Montag is such an important part in his job as Fireman is stagnating, and indeed it seeks to remain the same by eliminating conflict as would be brought about if people were able to read and think for themselves. Montag believes in what he is doing until he reads one of the books he is supposed to burn, and this leads him in time to the underground where books are not only read but memorized as an act of preservation--you can burn the book, but the book lives on in the minds of those who have read it. Montag wants to bring the books back to life, a desire which is precisely counter to his task as a Fireman--he burns the books and so takes al

Category: Psychology - S