Re-Tribalizing the Global Village

McLuhan believed that human beings experience a ratio of senses; we are conditioned to accept certain senses as more important than other senses. Primitive, tribal people, according to McLuhan, have a much different ratio of senses compared to their more modern, literate counterparts: "[In] the tribal world, the senses of touch, taste, hearing, and smell were developed, for very practical reasons, to a much higher level than the strictly visual. Into this world, the phonetic alphabet fell like a bombshell, installing sight at the head of the hierarchy of senses" (McLuhan, 240). The written word became an extension of the eye, and since information could now be stored and recalled via the phonetic alphabet, sight became our most important sense. McLuhan insisted that this unnatural prominence of sight de-detribalized the Western world and created fragmented, specialized societies. Mechanical technologies, in particular the printing press, reinforced sight as the primary sense and contributed to the detribalization process.

Humanity began the return to its tribal roots with the advent of electric media: "The electric media...have not only extended a single sense of function as the mechanical media did...but have enhanced and externalized our entire central nervous systems, thus transforming all aspects of our social and psychic existence" (McLuhan 245). While print engages the visual senses, television and computers are tactile/auditory media. This re-balancing of the senses is the basis for our return to a tribal society.

McLuhan coined the term "the global village" to describe the re-balancing of the senses and a return to a tribal society. Modern disciples of McLuhan claim that this dream has at last been realised in the form of the Internet. In fact, the term "global village" has become synonymous with the information superhighway; in other words, "quick access to information anywhere in the world." McLuhan’s definition was more literal, and the Internet appears to be a great step towards this vision.

One of the most demanding challenges of the detribalized human’s life is information classification: "[T]he rise of the phonetic alphabet seems to have had much to do with platonic culture and the ordering of experience in the terms of ideas - classifying of data and experience by ideas" (BBC interview). At first glance, the Internet appears to be the most specialized information system on the planet. The hierarchical structure used by such websites as Yahoo! operate by moving from a general category (such as health) to more specialized categories (Yoga retreats). However, this method of information retrieval is merely a remnant of the mechanical age of media where specialization and hierarchical data organization were prominent. What is becoming a more popular form of web browsing is "surfing." As the name implies, surfing is an almost random jumping from website to website. By following links to other sites, Internet surfers often find themselves far from the specific topic they were first interested in.

Although most Web sites are still dedicated to a single subject, many web sites are becoming less specific. An abundance of WYSIWYG HTML editors and free web space providers such as Geocites has resulted in an explosion of personal home pages. These sites are often centered on the creators’ interests, and as a result demonstrate a unique range of topics and links. Corporate web sites are also moving towards generalization with co-operative efforts such as MSNBC, which gives both NBC and Microsoft access to the Internet and television. Both navigation and content of the Internet are becoming generalized.

In Marshall McLuhan’s Playboy interview, he claims there is a correlation between a sight-biased medium and nationalism:

Nationalism didn’t exist in Europe until the Renaissance, when typography enabled every literate man to see his mother tongue analytically as a uniform entity. The printing press, by spreading mass-produced books and printed matter across Europe, turned the vernacular regional languages of the day into uniform closed systems of national languages - just another variant of what we call mass media - and gave birth to the entire concept of nationalism.

Conversations on the Internet, either asynchronous over the Usenet or synchronous in a chat program, are still conducted in text. Therefore, verbal indicators of national origin--such as dialects and accents--are hidden. Only subtle indicators such as spelling and grammar can distinguish between two people of different nationalities who communicate with the same language. This makes the content of the conversation the only place where national identity can be revealed; by nature the Internet discourages nationalism by promoting a community with universal customs and without boundaries or ethnicity.

This planet is not yet the global village that McLuhan envisioned. Ignoring for a moment the fact that most of the people on Earth are not yet connected to the Internet, those who are, still cling to the habits and points-of-view of a mechanical society. The Internet is still mostly an electronic mirror of our detribalized selves; it is only beginning to force new ways of thinking and new ways of seeing. We just have to allow ourselves to return to the society of our ancestors.

---. "Playboy Interview." Essential McLuhan. Ed. Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone. New York: Basic Books, 1995. 233-269.

Wolfe, Tom. Video Commentary by Tom Wolfe. 1996. (http://www.videomcluhan.com/wolfe.htm) (26 October 1998).