[NOH Masks :: Rural Japan, Photo by Linda Butler]
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“And this is the old myth of Narcissus. The word Narcissus means narcosis, numbness, a drug; and Narcissus was drugged into thinking that that image outside himself was somebody else. Narcissus did not fall in love with his own image, he thought it was somebody else. And the same with us, in our technology and gadgetry and gimmickry and so on, we don’t think that is merely a part of our own physical organism extended out there, we’re like Narcissus, completely numb. Now when we put out a new part of ourselves, extend a new part of ourselves by technology into the environment, we protect ourselves by numbing that area. The more I looked at this the more I had difficulty explaining why people ignored it.”
~ Marshall McLuhan [Ian Sanders]
