Featured Post

Brad Pitt and Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and Aldo Ray

Continuing at Huff Po is another small minded review of Inglourious Basterds http://tinyurl.com/nyeqfc (please bear with me until I learn...

Popular Posts

Monday, April 16, 2018

Reading Trump Through Marshall McLuhan:The MEDIUM is the MESSAGE







The MEDIUM Is the MESSAGE

The CONTENT Is IRRELEVANT

Meanwhile back at the ranch online all discussion concerns CONTENT.
Especially his LIES

Trump LIES at least 6 times every day some stat person said. On Monday he says X and on Tuesday he contradicts X and on Wednesday he contradicts what he said on Tuesday and so on and so on as Vonnegut always said.

Trump lies excessively. He lies worse and worser. He is the worsest liar of all.

This is Nietzsche. You want to get rid of something? You do it WORSE and WORSER!
EXCESSIVELY!

The focus on CONTENT allows distraction to rule. 

ALL POLITICIANS LIE AND HAVE LIED TO US FOREVER. 
Is this something new? Nope. 

The Trump Administration is a MEDIUM. 
The MEDIUM is the MESSAGE.
The CONTENT is IRRELEVANT.

So what is the MESSAGE in Trump's public display of LIES?
The Message is INVISIBLE. 
It is GROUND not FOCUS.

My reading is that Trump's lies are in your face. 
Trump's LIES are SLAPS in your face. 
They are meant to HIT you in the face. 
They are DIRECT, obviously lies, often disgusting, and relentless.

What is the truth in the lies?The message in the bombardment of lies? The excessiveness of Trump's lies? Are Trump's lies to be perceived as truth or as lies? 

That is the question.

We have always been lied to. From George Washington's I cannot tell a lie I did chop down the cherry tree to this cascade of lies from Trump.

What is the message? Is it still invisible to you?

All of them lie all the time. They always lie and they always did lie. 

Then there are lies that are wearing the MASK of TRUTH.

Is Trump lying directly or is he lying his lies with the MASK of TRUTH covering them?
5 Critical Essays in This Edition That Are Superb-Miller's especially

This is a profound question. Joseph Conrad poses it in 1899 in his Heart of Darkness. Conrad had said, "he wants his readers to THINK!"

Marlowe goes to see Kurtz's Intended at the end of the novel. She is deeply in mourning. 

He tells her Kurtz's last words which she is desperate to hear. 

Does he tell her the awful truth: "THE HORROR! THE HORROR!"
 He does not.

"His last words were.....your name."
"I knew it! I knew it," she says.

Marlowe gives her the lie MASKED by TRUTH. 

The question asked by Trump to the world is:

Do you want the direct lie or do you want the lie MASKED by TRUTH? Do you want the truth? Or do you want the truth wearing the MASK of lie?

So which do you want?
You can avoid choosing by a focus on CONTENT.

CHOMSKY  thinking would read this as surface structure of meaning and deep structure of meaning. The surface content and the INTENT. What is Trump's INTENT?

Is he trying to teach us or distract us?