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On the surface, the phrase "the medium is the message," prophetic as it may have been when Marshall McLuhan coined it, points a now-obvious fact of our wired world, namely that the content of any medium is less important than its form. The advent of email, for instance, has brought about changes in society and culture that are more far-reaching than the content of any particular email. On the other hand, this aphorism of McLuhan's has the ring of an utterance of the Delphic Oracle. As Phil proposes in this episode of Weird Studies, it is an example of what Zen practitioners call a koan, a statement that occludes and illumines in equal measures, a jewel whose shining surface is an invitation to descend into dark depths. Join JF and Phil as they discuss the mystical and cosmic implications of McLuhan's oracular vision.

REFERENCES

McLuhan, Understanding Media
\nThe Playboy interview
\nMcLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects
\nGraham Harman, American philosopher
\nClement Greenberg, American critic
\nDale Pendell, Pharmako/Poeia: Plant Powers, Poisons, and Herbcraft
\nBrian Eno, British composer
\nMarshall and Eric McLuhan, The Laws of Media: The New Science _
\nJonathan Sterne, _The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction
\nEric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone (editors), The Essential McLuhan
\nCharles A. Reich, The Greening of America
\nDavid Fincher (director), The Social Network _
\nGilles Deleuze, _Cinema I _and _Cinema II
\nJean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin
\nEric Havelock,_ Preface to Plato_
\nWalter J. Ong, American theorist
\nPlato, [Republic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic(Plato))_