CotiyriKhl = Mc I uhan ANSOH.

IIOS Limited for the servicesof:

Marshall McLuhan/Kathryn Hutchon/Eric McLuhan, 1977
Acknowledgements
We wish to thanl<the following authors and their representatives who have kindly permit-
ted the reproduction of copyright material: Noel B. Cerson: Because I Loved Him: The Life
and Loves of Lillie Langtry. WilliamMorrow & Co., Inc. New York. 1971. Marshall
McLuhan: "Inside on the Outside, or the Spaced-Out American." The Annenberg School
of Communications: journal of Communication and McLuhan Associates Ltd. 1976.
Henry Reed: "Naming of Parts" in A Map of Verona. Jonathan Cape Ltd. London. Kenneth R.
Schneider: Autokind vs. Manl<ind. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. New York ^1971.
It is an infringement of the author's rights and a violation of the Copyright Law to repro-
duce or utilize in any formor by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-
copying, electrostatic copying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval sys-
temor any other way passagesfromthis book without the written permission of the
publishers.
NOTE
It is essential that users of this book
study Chapter One first, as it explains
and develops the method of analysis
used throughout the book.
ISBN 0-7725-5020-4
Canadian Cataloguingin Publication Data
McLuhan, Marshall, 1911-
City as classroom
Bibliography: p.
ISBN 0-7725-5020-4 pa.
I. Communication. 2. Mass mediaSocial aspects.
3. TechnologySocial aspects. I. Hutchon, Kathryn.
II. McLuhan, Eric. III. Title
P90.M252 301.16 C77-001283-3
Printed in Canada
2 3 4 5 6 7 89 84 83 82 81 80 79 7877
\ S1
' 18 MAY 1979
mc rN/ NTIONAL LI8RAJIT
Dr ^J'-^A' -7r,\'.
Contents
Introduction: What's in a school? 1
1 TrainingPerception
1. Noticing accurately 7
2. Figure/ground: a technique for seeing the whole situation 8
3. How useful is figure/ground analysis? 14
4. Hidden grounds: how they affect our perception 18
5. Figure/ground analysis: a way to discover meaning 21
2 Properties of the Media
Introduction 31
1. Motor Cars 33
2. Newspapers 38
3. Magazines 46
4. Books 52
5. Light Bulbs 59
6. Photographs 61
7. Films 64
8. Television and Videotape 70
9. Radio 87
10. Audiotape 92
11. Telephone 100
12. Clocks 105
13. Computers 109
14. Airplanes 113
15. Satellites 116
16. Money 117
3 Effectsof the Media: a New Culture
Introduction 119
1. Motor Cars 122
2. Newspapers 126
3. Magazines 128
4. Books 129
5. Light Bulbs 132
6. Photographs 133
7. Films 134
8. Television 135
9. Radio 137
10. Telephone 138
11. Clocks 140
12. Computers 141
13. Airplanes 142
14. Satellites 143
15. Money 144
16. MediaTrials 145
4 The Cityas Classroom
1. What you already know about your society 149
2. Updatingyour knowledge outside the classroom:
continuingeducation 151
3. Gettingto know your culture through mapsand exhibits 155
4. Exploring your culture through itsadvertising 157
5. Learning about your own culture through others 161
5 How to Relate to Your Own Time
1. How to remain aware 165
2. Slang 166
3. Popular Culture 170
4. What good isit to be aware? 171
General Bibliography Ml
General Reference 183
Introduction:
What's in a school?
Let usbegin by wonderingjust what you are doingsittingthere at
your desk.
Here are some questionsfor you to explore. We suggest that you divide
yourselves into research teams of not more than four people, and when
you have worked out answers to the questions, present your findingsto
the other teamsfor general discussion.
The questions and experiments you will find in thisbook are all con-
cerned with important, relatively unexplored areasof our social environ-
ment. The research you choose to do will be important and original. If
you'd like to share your research with our teamof three authors, send us
anote in care of the publisher.
As students in aschool, do you think you have come to work?
1. Is school supposed to be aplace of work? Isthe work done by the
students, or the staff, or both? Look up the root meaningof the word
'school' {schola <Greek o x o A fj ).
When you are at school, are you separated fromthe community?
If so, are you separated physically or in other ways?
Does the community want you to be separated fromthe work
force? Ask local leaders in businessand education.
2. Could you join the work force before you reach school-leaving age?
Contact local labor union leaders and ask for their opinion of the
school-leaving age. Ask your teacher to explain the legislation gov-
erningschool-leaving age in your area. Can you discover the reasons
behind the legislation? Ask your vice-principal to explain the relation
between school fundingand school attendance.
Do you and your fellow studentstend to regard the classroomas
akind of prison?
3. Do the daysof your school life seemlike 'doingtime' until you are
eligible for the labor market?
Do you consider that real education isoutside the classroom?
4
The City
as Classroom
1. what you already know about your
society
Today'ssocieties encompassan immense amount of information. Most
of thisinformation hasto be acquired by all the inhabitantsof aparticular
society so that they can survive there.
Your society existsin aman-made environment, ahuge
warehouse of information, avast resource to be mined free of
charge.
If you take time to think about your society's man-made environment,
you will probably find that you already know agreat deal about it, not
because you have studied it in school, but just because you have lived in
it.
What have you already learned fromyour society about its
servicesand symbols?
1. Here isalist of some of the thingsthat you encounter in your society
every day. What do you already know about the 'language' of:
communication networks of radio and television; (How do you
distinguish between programsand commercials? How many tech-
nical broadcasting termsdo you know?)
street signsand traffic signsand signals;
transportation systems, their routes, fares; technical termsrelating
to cars, trains, subways, buses, trucks, airplanes;
functionsof buildings? (How do you distinguish, without printed
signs, ahospital, aschool, acollege, an office building, afactory, a
church, abank, apost office?)
150 City as Classroom
Make notes about how you acquired this information. Your par-
ents may be able to help you recall early activities and visits through
which you learned many of these things.
List what you already know about the language of gesture and
dress.
2. List the groups of people whose work you can identify by their
appearance. What is it that tells you about the work of each group?
"You can be lots of different things when you grow up. All
you have to do is change your hat."
(A small boy replying to a visitor's question.)
3. How are you able to separate friendly from less friendly sorts of
people? Would you, for instance, ask street directions of a man
rushing out of a bank with a gun in his hand?
How would you select people from whom to ask city directions
during the daytime and at night?
How do you know whom to ask for help when you are shopping
in a store?
4. What would be a good way to find out where to buy a bike? Would
you consult friends or shopkeepers or the Consumer's Report?
What other kinds of information do you need to know in order to
survive a day?
5. Select three color advertisements from different magazines. Make
sure that each ad includes a picture of one or more persons. Write a
biographical sketch of three of the people in the ads. What is it that
tells you about each person's role in life?
2. Updating your knowledge outside the
classroom: continuing education
To many young people updating means keeping track of the 'Top
10', or the ratings of movies, records and tapes.
1. Are stars 'born' or 'made'? Look up the history of a rock star or a
movie star.
2. What kinds of moral instruction do you receive from listening to
popular music?
Read the last section of Plato's Republic in which he says that a
change in musical rhythms can cause a revolution. Can you make a
case for Plato's argument? Does 'rock education' educate the 'whole
person' of its listeners, or does it educate only special aspects for
special purposes?
To some extent the public updates itself by means of magazines
and newspapers.
3. Check your local newspaper to find the 'Top 10' stories covered
every day for a month or two.
How would you expect to discover the 'Top 10' among maga-
zines?
4. Read the story about Patti Hearst in Rolling Stone (October 25,
1975). It shows on a big scale a form of brainwashing which is
widespread on a much smaller scale.
5. As we saw in Chapter Two, you can cover up the last frame of a
'funny' cartoon strip and discover the grievance that forms the
ground for the punchlines (figure). Using this method, go through
the comics in today's paper and list the social grievances you find.
Popular entertainment usually reflects the interests of large
groups of people and is a good resource for keeping in touch with
popular concerns.
6. What do you learn about your society from action pictures, from
soap operas and from situation comedies?
7. Investigate horror movies as creative responses to the sick society in
which we live. What features of the hidden ground of our society do
these movies make visible?
152 City as Classroom
8. Are the young more discriminating when watching TV programs
than adults? Do the young constantly test what they watch against
their own experience? Do adults do this? Do adults consider only
ETV as educational? List the kinds of programs different groups of
people consider educational.
Examine the way the entertainment business has made the public
aware of all sorts of consumer preferences and activities.
9. Advertising agencies handle promotion for the entertainment busi-
ness. Arrange to visit an agency and try to find out what is done to
prepare the public for new hits in entertainment fields.
10. Try to get some information about audience research as a means of
determining the market potential of the public. How would a record-
ing company go about arranging for a song that nobody had ever
heard before to become a 'smash hit'?
11. What is the function of the lie detector in discovering audience
responses to 'Top 10' recordings?
12. Try to discover parallels between the 'Top 10' in music, novels,
movies and clothing fashions.
You will remember that the movie, "The Great Gatsby," promoted
a revival of the fashions of the 1920s. Find two more examples of
such influence.
13. Review some of the changes in your own preferences over the past
two years in comics, sports, TV and music. Have other members of
your class experienced the same changes in preferences? What
should this tell you?
One of the best ways to investigate the 'information warehouse'
that is your city or town is to study a particular institution or
business at its point of service.
14. To get an idea of some aspect of the law and how it works in your
area, arrange to visit a Manpower office or go to traffic-court hear-
ings and follow a case through: observe what the law means to
people who use it.
This same method of investigation is useful for deciding where to invest
money. If a company provides a valuable service to the society of its
time, an investment in it will succeed. To find a company likely to be
highly successful on a continuing basis is to find a company providing a
unique service.
15. Evaluate some businesses in your city or town and decide which
company would offer the best return for investment. Evaluate each
The City as Classroom 153
company on the basis of its real service to the community, its likeli-
hood of continuing, and its relationship with its employees. Ask
managers and employees about company relations.
A similar way of investigating businesses in your area and of updating
your information about business is to ask businessmen: "What business
are you in?" If a man replies that he's in the business of making glass
bottles, go and see how people are using his glass bottles, and you'll
discover that his business extends into storage. A man who thinks that
he is in the Venetian blind business, actually has a business that, viewed
more broadly, extends into light control.
16. Ask as many businessmen in your area as possible the question we
have suggested. How many of themoperate businesses that extend
beyond the fields they name? Did your survey turn up any gaps or
missing areas of service in your community? Could you use this
information to start a successful business?
Planned obsolescence is one commercial method of updating
education in a consumer society.
17. If there is a new building nearing completion in your area, ask the
architects, the contractors, the workmen, future tenants, and the
company that holds the mortgage to estimate how long the building
is designed to last, how long it will stand and when it will be obso-
lete. Does any group know for certain the answers to your ques-
tions? Compare the projected age of this new buildingwith the age
of some well-known old buildings in your city.
18. Ask the same questions about the hardware (machinery) and the
software (information) of a computer system. Ask the manufacturer,
the systems analyst, the programmers and the company-user of the
system. Compare their answers.
19. Ask car-owners the same questions. Try to find out how concerned
users are with obsolescence. What advantages does planned obso-
lescence offer the user? What disadvantages does it impose on the
user?
20. What can you learn about persons or institutions from what they
throw away? Investigate the garbage cans in your school for a few
days. Interview some garbagemen who have been on the force for a
long time. Why is it that in some countries there is no garbage? Ask
an archaeologist the value of garbage-study as a way of learning
about a society.
154 Cityas Classroom
Another way to continue updating your education is by the
'consumer-reporting' method.
21. Keep a continuing list of all the services in your environment. Beside
the name of each service, jot down the disservices it brings with it.
Begin by writing down the services and disservices provided by each
of the following:
banks, insurance companies, mining companies, grocery stores,
clothing stores, habitable buildings, schools, cars, planes, buses,
roads, airports, garbage collection, the legal system, fuels, home ap-
pliances, television, phones, records, radio, telegraph, magazines,
books, newspapers, professional entertainment, professional sports,
Muzak, postal services, advertising, the armed forces, international
trade.
The jet plane has created a new pattern of 'learning-by-
conference'.
Conferences bring together the representatives of businesses and profes-
sions from every part of the world. The members of the conferences
come from their various regions to educate one another in the problems
and the progress of their fields of interest.
22. Consider the new world of business conferences and conventions as
a program for educating personnel about the changes taking place in
their operations. What kinds of public conferences are held in your
town or city? What areas of education might you experience by
attending these conferences?
A study published in 1958 showed that in 1946 businesses were
spending about five times as much money to educate employees
as the public was then spending on schools and colleges.
23. Try to find some figures for current ratios in educational spending.
You might choose to investigate the educational programs of IBM,
General Motors, a large life insurance company or any other large
company.
What sort of training do these companies provide as an everyday
part of their procedure?
24. Talk to heads of programs for in-service training in industrial manage-
ment about their priorities in their own programs. How well prepared
do they consider the graduates of our present systems of education ?
25. Ask members of a graduating class of two to five years ago about
their satisfactions and dissatisfactions with what they learned in
The Cityas Classroom 155
school. Find out how far they are able to relate their school curricu-
lum to their new occupations. Do they think that education has any
value apart from its application to jobs and careers? What changes
would they like to see made in education?
26. Arrange to talk with directors of teacher-training programs and ask if
you may sit in on a few classes. Compare these programs with one
described at Antioch Law School, Washington, D.C., where law stu-
dents are required to live in the homes of inner-city families for a
period of several weeks before attending regular classes. This ap-
prenticeship for the law students is intended to help them acquire a
firsthand acquaintance with the problems of their clients, and to
learn what their clients know about the existing legal structure in
each community.
27. Using an 'ideal' teacher as an example, ask yourself what qualities
and characteristics fit him or her for teaching. Were these learned or
acquired at Teachers' College? Draw up a program for an ideal
Teachers' College that would produce such ideal instructors.
Have students a part in producing ideal teachers?
3. Getting to know your culture
through maps and exhibits
Making maps and exhibits is another interesting way to study
your own culture. Through your own creative work you can
discover whole new areas in your city or town.
1. Start by making an ordinary geographical map of your town; include
the topography, if you wish.
R. Murray Schafer, the Canadian composer, constantly studies 'sound-
scapes' as a way of understanding the dynamics of particular cities. He
sees 'acoustic engineering' as one of the Important studies of the future.
You can learn a great deal about using sound to study environments
from Schafer's books, The New Soundscape. (See p. 29.)
2. Using tape recorders, tape the usual sounds of each distinct area in
your city or town and then make a 'sound map' of your town.
3. Ask each team to volunteer to make one or more of these maps of
your city or town:
a mineral map;
156 Cityas Classroom
an animal map;
a population density map;
a map showing current crime rates in each area of your town or
city;
an industrial map showing all factories and office buildings;
a map showing major shopping areas;
a map to show recreational facilities;
a political map indicating the parties represented in Federal or
Provincial Parliament in each riding;
a map of all the religious buildings;
a linguistic map.
Finally, when you have made a number of the maps suggested,
spread them all out in front of you and see if any interesting patterns
emerge.
"Museum method' offers another interesting approach to the study of
your culture. Everyone has been to a museum and seen an Innuit or an
Indian or a pioneer exhibit.
Could you make a museum exhibit for the way of life in your own
town or city? Try it.
4. Make two museum-style exhibits, one of the Grade 9 way of life, and
another of the Grade 12 way of life.
What criteria did you use in choosing pieces for each exhibit?
A time capsule is a box containing enough evidence and artifacts from a
civilization so that some stranger, one thousand years in the future, could
tell from examining the contents of the capsule what that civilization was
like.
5. Make up a time capsule of our present North American way of life,
so that someone, one thousand years from now, could infer what
our culture must have been like. There are only two rules: do not put
more than ten items in the capsule; do not include any written or
printed material. If you have trouble deciding what to include in the
capsule, pretend that you are shipwrecked alone on a desert island
and write down the ten things you would miss most.
4. Exploring your culture through
its advertising
"... propaganda forms culture and in a certain sense is culture."
Jacques Ellul
Propaganda
Advertising is one of the most obvious features of our culture. We are
constantly surrounded by so much of it, from the label on the cereal box
at breakfast to the fade-out of the last commercial, as we turn off the
final TV show of the evening, that we take its bombardment for granted.
But if we examine advertising as figure, it can tell us a great deal
about our culture.
1. Make as complete a list as possible of all the different products that
are commonly advertised. Next, describe the picture of our culture
that these ads present. Is your description an accurate picture of
North American culture?
2. Look up 'cargo cults' in an encyclopedia. What is the relation of
cargo cults to advertising?
3. What is the total annual expenditure for advertising in Canada?
Compare the figure with some other figures: the government's ex-
penditure for housing, for defence, for welfare or for scientific re-
search. If you can find an economist, ask him or her to discuss the
place of advertising dollars in the national economy.
One of the common assumptions about ads is that they are
intended to sell products.
4. This assumption is easily tested. Pick up a sample copy of each of .i
couple of large-circulation magazines like Maclean's or Chatelainv or
Cosmopolitan. Tear out of each magazine the first fifty ads (inclu<l-
ing the cover which is designed to promote newsstand sales and
therefore functions as an ad) and sort theminto piles according lo
their approach: (1) a pile for those ads that actually tell you to buy a
particular product; (2) a pile for those ads that seemjust to inform
the reader about the availability of a product; (3) another pile for
those that seemto be promoting a service rather than a product
("We service what we sell." "Let your fingers do the walking"); (4) a
pile for ads that promote a way of life or kind of society ("You've
158 Cityas Classroom
come a long way, baby!" "Today's woman knows what she wants");
and (5) a pile for those ads that educate or teach ("Anatomy of a
Camera"). Do you need to make any other piles? Now, reexamine
the pile of overt, clear directions to BUY. What percentage of the ads
does this pile contain? in other words, what percentage of the ads
actually SELLproducts? If you examine magazines from the forties,
before the television age, you might find a very different sort of
pattern and set of percentages.
One of the other common assumptions about ads is that their
appeal is directed at everybody.
A conversation with a staff-member of a large advertising agency will
teach you that every ad is aimed at a specific audience. You might find it
very interesting to look at an agency's demographic data. Above all
things, an advertiser is concerned about the effect an ad will have on its
'audience'! Therefore the advertiser spends a great deal of time discover-
ing the characteristics of the ad's audience, before doing anything else.
For this reason, the first question to ask when analyzing an ad is, "Who is
the audience being addressed in this ad?"
5. To answer this question, start by listing the characteristics of the ad
in front of you. Is the ad simple, complex, romantic, logical? Was it
designed for snob-appeal, for a 'hard-sell' or 'soft-sell' approach? Are
its colors soft and subdued or loud and bright? Is its tone quiet and
insinuating or brash and blatant? Has the ad a lot of text to be read or
only a little? Is it meant to appeal to the audience's emotions or its
intellect? Does it try to create fear, pride, sex-interest, competitive
feelings? Ask yourself any other suitable questions.
6. Now, with the ad and your list in front of you, ask yourself, "If I am
the target of this ad, what kind of reader amI supposed to be? AmI
supposed to be literate or illiterate; alert or asleep at the switch;
elite or common; serious or frivolous; up-to-date or old-fashioned;
sophisticated or naive; adventurous or cautious; male or female;
old or young; rich, comfortably off, or poor; aggressive or passive;
amoral, moral, or immoral; a leader or a follower; an individual or a
member of a group? To what aims, needs, desires, or values of mine
is the ad appealing? Is the ad meant to sell me something, or to sell
me to myself? Is it intended to make me pamper myself, or to stir my
critical faculties? Is the ad ruined, if I amalert and aware of its real
purpose?"
The Cityas Classroom 159
7. What aspects of the ad or the situation it presents amI supposed to
notice as f/gure? What aspects am 1 not supposed to notice as
ground? For help with this question, consult W.B. Key's Media Sex-
ploitation. (See p. 29.)
Add your own questions, and when you have answered themall, you
will have a realistic perception of the audience for whomthe ad was
intended. You should also be able to determine what the ad is really
doing, that is, the effect it is producing on its 'audience'.
8. To arrive at a more general understanding of how ads work and the
kinds of audiences at which ads are aimed, have several teams of
students select an ad from each of the piles you sorted out in Exer-
cise 4. Analyze these ads. If you have access to videotape equip-
ment, and arrange permissions, you can also analyze TV ads. As you
discovered through your analysis of magazine ads, the advertiser
knows that he must correctly identify the audience to whomthe ad
is speaking, if it is to be fully effective. It is also very important for the
advertiser to make sure that the 'speaker' of the ad establishes rap-
port with the audience. To discover the identity of the 'speaker' who
may or may not be pictured in the ad, ask yourselves;
Who is the speaker in this ad?
Is the speaker old or young, attractive or unattractive, 'working'
or just 'relating'?
Does the speaker present himself or herself, or impersonate
someone else?
Is the speaker's face beautiful or handsome? Is it ugly, nonde-
script, earnest, approving, pained, excited, thoughtful?
Is the speaker standing up or sitting down?
Is he or she wearing ordinary clothes or a special costume?
Is the speaker's voice high-pitched and squeaky, or low and
sexy? Is it confidential or exuberant or raspy?
Does the speaker shout or whisper?
Has the speaker an accent? What kind?
How does the speaker handle rhythms? Are the words evenly
spaced? Is their tempo plodding?
Does the speaker speak quickly or slowly? Are the words halt-
ing, jumpy or excited? Is the tone lilting, melodic, hypnotic?
What does this speaker think or pretend that he or she is doing?
Is the speaker whispering persuasively in your ear? Is he or she
talking across a counter or walking beside you?
Is the speaker patting you on the back or on the head? Is the
speaker trying to soothe you or to rouse you?
160 Cityas Classroom
Is the speaker shaking your hand or picking your pocket?
What feelings does the speaker show about the product or items
in the ad?
Does the speaker seemdeceitful, enthusiastic, bored, brash,
detached, involved, humorous, angry, seductive?
What attitude does the speaker show toward the audience?
Does the speaker use a tone which suggests that you are wise,
intelligent, alert, passive, thoughtful, critical, educated, unedu-
cated, stupid or mindless?
Does the speaker's tone suggest that he or she thinks himself
or herself superior, inferior or equal to you?
Does the speaker's tone suggest that he or she thinks you are
docile or easily led?
If you put together all the answers to these questions, it should be
very easy for you to determine what effect an ad has on its 'audi-
ence'.
By analysing TV ads you can become aware of stereotypes, such
as the image of the North American homemaker, in most
advertising.
9. A quick way to discover this image is by getting permission to video-
tape all the ads from an afternoon soap opera. Next, get permission
to tape an episode from a prime-time police or detective series.
Splice the soap opera ads into the ad slots in the prime-time pro-
gram. Play back the prime-time show with the new ads in it. Do the
ads clash with the show? Are the women in the commercials even
sillier by contrast with the 'tough guys' in the detective series? Al-
most all TV ads are aimed at a stereotyped audience of the particular
shows with which they appear.
Ideally, advertising moves toward archetypal imagery.
The clue to archetype is found in Andy Warhol's famous mosaic of
Campbell's soup tins where, by mere use of numbers, the soup tin
becomes an artform. The old adage, "You feel better satisfied when you
use well-known brands," is another way of saying that by repetition and,
as it were, by incantation, the user feels a huge access of power and
energy. The user of an object that exists in great numbers puts on the
power and energy of that object, whether it is a motor car, a pair of jeans,
or a tin of Coke. The mere repetitive advertising of the McDonald's
hamburger transforms it into an 'archetype', just as the cowboy costume
worn by children and hippies transforms theminto mythical people.
The Cityas Classroom 161
10. How many other examples can you find of much-repeated images
that have formed new 'archetypes' for our world? Make a list of all
the examples that you can think of.
11. When you wear your jeans, are you a walking advertisement? What
other things do you advertise without realizing it?
If you compare North American ads with ads for the same
product in foreign magazines, you will very quickly begin to note
cultural differences.
12. Collect some magazines published on other continents and compare
ads for several kinds of products with ads for similar products in
North American magazines. What clues to cultural differences can
you find?
By comparing a contemporary ad with an ad for the same product
used twenty years ago or fifty years ago, you will discover a great
deal about changes in our culture and corresponding changes in
its people.
13. Try an experiment similar to Number 12, if you can find ads pub-
lished twenty or fifty years ago. What clues to cultural changes can
you find by comparing these ads with contemporary ads for the
same or similar products?
5. Learning about your own
culture through others
Practices in other cultures can reveal some basic facts about your
own.
In Japan, for instance, furniture is placed in the middle of a room accord-
ing to its function and the mood of the householder. Thus, Japanese
furniture is constantly being rearranged, as the Japanese change their
household environment for every occasion and mood.
North Americans, on the other hand, are likely to place all their furni-
ture around the outside of a room and leave an empty space in the
middle for people; and they change their furniture arrangements compar-
162 Cityas Classroom
atively rarely. North Americans, it seems, understand space as a box in
which people are contained, rather than as a plastic element which
people make.
Language peculiarities also point to this North American concept of
space. In English, we say, "I am lost," if we are out in the wilds and can't
find our way home; in a similar situation, an Innuit (Inland Eskimo) hunter
says, "The house is lost." An Innuit can never himself be lost: he is
always the center; like the Japanese, he 'makes' space. But an English-
speakingperson is lost, inside the container of space.
1. Find out all you can about your own culture by comparing it with
five other cultures under these headings:
cooking;
Christmas celebrations and customs;
family structures;
male-female relationships;
clothing;
furniture;
architecture;
sports, pastimes;
arts;
language of gesture;
idioms. Consider, for example:
Chinese: ("I know it like my fingers and palm.)
Czecho- "Znamto jak sve stare boty."
slovakian: CI know it like my old boots.")
English: "I know it like the back of my hand."
French: "Je le sais au fond." ^JU,
German: "Ich kenne es wie meine eigene Hosentasche." "S"
Other languages can give fascinatinginsights into other cultures,
and provide a wealth of material to help you learn more about
your own culture.
2. Make a list of things you can say in another language that you can't
say in English. Ask students who speak another language fluently to
make a list of English expressions which have no equivalent in that
language, so that the class can compare notes. Is there, for instance,
an English equivalent of the French 'sympathique', or Spanish
'simpatico'? Is the idea of 'soul', in the term 'soul-music', expressible
in other languages?
E.T. Hall has written two fascinatingbooks, which should help you
in exploringthese questions: The Silent Language and The Hidden
Dimension. (See p. 28.)
The Cityas Classroom 163
Another way to discover your own culture is to contrast sound
patterns.
3. Study a paintingfrom three different periods of your own culture.
Write down the sounds for which you see evidence in each painting.
Divide these into three categories: (1) sounds in nature and animal
sounds; (2) human sounds; (3) technological sounds. Is there a pre-
dominance of one kind of sound in each period of painting? Try to
express your findings in percentages.
Do this same exercise using a poem from each period. Try the
exercise using paintings of the same period, but from five different
cultures.
What can you learn about your own environment in this way?
Tourism provides continuingeducation for many people.
4. List the ways in which the tourist industry has influenced your ideas
of other countries and cultures.
5. How many foreign-language newspapers are circulated in your city?
How many countries can you live in without leavingyour own city?
Try makingup guidebooks to introduce people to the various ethnic
experiences available to themwithin their own city. Include all the
restaurants, clubs, churches, schools, stores, where the language and
customs of each culture are practiced.
For Further Study:
Glatzer, Robert. The New Advertising: Twenty-One Successful Cam-
paigns fromSchweppes to the Sierra Club. New York: The Citadel
Press, 1970.
The satisfactions in the new ads are found in the ads, not in the
products. "Love Thy Label as Thyself."
Jacobs, Jane. Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York:
Vintage Books, 1961.
A study of the structure of human community which is now lo he
found in the slum.
Key, Wilson B. Subliminal Seduction: Ad Media's Manipulation of a
Not So Innocent America. Englewood Cliffs, N.j.: Prentice-Hall,
1973.
(Note: use hardback edition only, as 'imbeds' cannot be seen
clearly in the softcover edition.)
A study of the role of the hidden ground in persuasive sales.
164 Cityas Classroom
Schafer, Murray. The Book of Noise. Wellington, New Zealand: Price,
Milburn & Co. Ltd., 1970. Distributed by Berandol Music Ltd., 11 St.
Joseph Street, Toronto, Ontario.
A study of sound pollution in the modern city and how we might
defend ourselves.
Schumacher, E.F. Small Is Beautiful: [A Study of] Economics As If
People Mattered. London: Abacus, 1974; Harper & Row, 1975.
The speed-up in the electronic wodd is paradoxically restoring the
desire for smallness and human scale.
How to Relate
to Your Own Time
1. How to remain aware
The title of the previous chapter, "The City as Classroom," can be in-
verted to read "The Classroomas City." Since the advent of electronic
media such as computers, enormous amounts of information are now
available in the classroom. We have already noted that in an age when
answers are being discovered outside the classroom, questions belong
inside the classroom; similarly, when an 'information explosion' is occur-
ring outside the classroom, the study of structures of information or
'pattern recognition' can go on inside the classroom.
All through this book, you have been studying the patterns and struc-
tures of our contemporary culture. Patterns and structures 'make sense'
of things. Understanding structures enables us all to avoid that feeling of
helplessness and frustration that makes us want to shout, "Stop the
world I want to get off!"
Now that you have come to the last chapter in this book, we are
going to mention a few ways of maintaining your awareness of
the changing patterns in your society.
The strategies which we are going to point out should also help you to
notice new patterns in your society very quickly.