But I actually knew Tony Schwartz in another, though related way. He was one of Marshall McLuhan's disciples in the 1960s. Tony Schwartz's specialty was what McLuhan would call "acoustic space" - the unique way, or very different from seeing, that sound is perceived by us and can influence us. That way is, mainly, that you don't have to look at it, as you do with an image. In fact, sound can reach us any time it likes, from anyplace in the environment, wherever we may be looking or not. Tony Schwartz put lots of insights like that into his best-known book, The Responsive Chord.
I cited and built upon that book in my doctoral dissertation (Human Replay: A Theory of the Evolution of Media) and my own much later book about McLuhan, Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millennium, in which I wrote about why radio survived the advent of television in the 1950s. The reason was that radio's presentations - hearing without seeing - are an entirely natural mode of communication. The world grows dark every night but not really silent, we can easily close our eyes but not ever our ears, etc. (In contrast, silent movies did not survive the introduction of talkies - there is no natural niche of seeing without hearing.)
As a Master's student at the New School for Social Research in the 1970s, I was privileged to visit Tony's studio in Manhattan, along with my class, several times. He sat at a desk surrounded by tape recorders and other pre-computer equipment. It felt like a scene out of a 1950s science fiction movie.
The history of propaganda is still being written - more so now than ever in this Presidential campaign. Tony Schwartz will have a permanent place in there, along with Leni Riefenstahl and Michael Moore - but much closer to Moore in the good that both have done for progressive causes.
6 comments:
He sounded like a very interesting and unique man. Let me ask you this honestly I had this conversation with my husband, In the 80's I'm sure you remember the song Video killed the radio star while I think it was true then with the invention of MTV(my generation-there were plenty of songs that became famous because of the video not the song)I do not feel video rules now. Why do you think the shift went back to sound?
Good question: I think sound never really left the center stage - if you think about popularity of Top 40 radio in the 1950s, FM Radio in the 60s and 70s, and then MP3s and CDs in the 1990s-now.
Videos were briefly in the spotlight when MTV broke through in the 80s, but sound was always there, waiting to come back strong in the 90s. (YouTube is making music videos more important, again, but still not as strong as MP3s.)
Hmm. LBJ was the anti-warmonger. yet, after re-election, he escalated our troop involvement from a truly advisory force to over 500,000.
50,000 kids that died in 'nam ... Was electing LBJ progress? Is that progressive?
LBJ was a great, progressive President when it came to domestic policy.
And he was one of the worst, criminal, constitution-trampling Presidents in foreign policy - in his escalation of the Vietnam War.
So, what, exactly is your point, dean-o?
merely this: Artists use Lies to tell the Truth while politicians use them to cover it up.
And what does that have to do with "progressive"?
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