A McLuhan sourcebook 267 that it was a form of recognition of that which we had known in another existence.—1967 The history of the arts and sciences could be written in terms of the continuing process by which new technologies create new environments for old technologies.—1964 Each technological extension involves an act of collective cannibalism. The previous environment is swallowed by the new environment and reprocessed for whatever values are digestible. Thus, Nature was succeeded by the mechanical environment and became what we call the “content” of the new industrial environment.—1964 …we now live in a technologically prepared environment that blankets the earth itself. The humanly contrived environment of electric information and power has begun to take precedence over the old environment of “nature.” Nature, as it were, begins to be the content of our technology. —1965 And this strange processing of old forms by new forms tends, in some cases, to strengthen the old forms considerably. For example, one of the effects of automation on libraries and catalogs is to enormously increase the whole cataloging activity. Unexpectedly, instead of supplanting it, it has increased it enormously.—1965 Xerox makes it possible to present instant recaps of ongoing events—a sort of “story so far” that used to sit above serial publications. As in football instant replays, the recap or recorso draws attention to processes rather than product or even goal. The audience is involved in the game in a totally new way—a way that changes the game itself.—1964 Xerox has completely changed the nature of conferences and has led to a much higher frequency of meetings. Xerox feeds and speeds the entire environment into the dialogue process of the conference table.—1971 HOW TO STUDY MEDIA You must be literate in umpteen media to be really “literate” nowadays. —1966 If you want to understand the nature of TV, you make a complete inventory of all the things that have changed in the past 12 years, in dress, in social behavior, in program tastes.—1966 Understanding several media simultaneously is the best way of approaching any one of them. Any study of one medium helps us to understand all others.—1964 A primary method for studying the effects of anything is simply to imagine ourselves as suddenly deprived of them. If students were to interview physically deprived people about the effects on them of living in a world which has no place for a paraplegic, or a blind man, they would quickly apprehend the menace of our man-made service environment.— 1974