Many of those influenced by Marshall McLuhan—including fellow Canadian David Cronenberg—did not share the media theorist’s religious views; most of them weren’t even aware that the media seer had deep faith. Yet McLuhan’s religious sense offered structure, symbolism, and perhaps even song for his media explorations. Those persuaded by his media theories are not automatically persuaded by the religious vision that underpins them—yet we might consider that their attraction to a thinker so steeped in God suggests a theological osmosis of sorts. God made his way into media theory through McLuhan, whether it was recognized or not. Rather than fading into history like many of his provocative contemporaries, McLuhan has gained traction and credibility as the years have passed. It is fascinating to realize that McLuhan only becomes more of a prophet the further our world turns to the digital.
McLuhan’s appearance on the masthead [of Wired] might be a quirk or a wink of the technology magazine’s staff were it not for the faith of Kevin Kelly [executive editor of Wired] — and how that faith has influenced his vision of technology. Kelly has argued that “technology is actually a divine phenomenon that is a reflection of God.” Technology, for Kelly, offers us another way to try to understand the impossible: at our best, we might only apprehend God as metaphor; even with all the “artificial intellects we make,” we might only have “the slightest glimmer of who God is.”
https://lithub.com/how-marshall-mcluhan-was-the-patron-saint...
I wonder what McLuhan would say about the Metaverse?
I nominate SerenityOS as the new spiritual computing platform, because it reflects a spiritual desire to create and live rather than decay and die.
> The final synthesis of the revelations of the prophets into a true temple OS will come with great fury against this commercial adulteration of the sacred software stack, and sweep in a new era of user-empowering general-purpose computing.
Amen!
