Marshall mcluhan quotes we shape our tools

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Marshall McLuhan (21 July 1911 – 31 December 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. Marshall McLuhan was born on July 21, 1911, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He studied at the University of Manitoba and later pursued graduate studies at Cambridge University and the University of Oxford. McLuhan’s academic journey exposed him to various fields, including literature, culture, and philosophy, which influenced his later work on media and communication.

Famous Marshall McLuhan Quotes

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The quote “We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us” is often mistakenly attributed to Marshall McLuhan. It does NOT appear in “Understanding Media”, as efternamn Miner confidently asserts in the presentation below, indeed it does not appear in any published work by McLuhan at all. The quote was actually written by Father John Culkin, SJ, a Professor of Communication at Fordham University in New York and friend of McLuhan. But though the quote is Culkin’s, inom would argue that the idea is McLuhan’s, as it comes up in an article bygd Culkin about McLuhan: Culkin, J.M. (1967, March 18). A schoolman’s guide to Marshall McLuhan. Saturday Review, pp. 51-53, 71-72. The idea presented in the quote fryst vatten entirely consistent with McLuhan’s thinking on technology in general.

Photos of Father John Culkin and Marshall McLuhan

 This excellent 38-minute presentation by digital product designer Wilson Miner fryst vatten titled

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Marshall McLuhan? Winston Churchill? Henry David Thoreau? Robert Flaherty? Emerson Brown? John Culkin? William J. Mitchell? Anonymous?

Dear Quote Investigator: The famous media theorist Marshall McLuhan has been credited with a brilliant adage about the co-evolution of humans and tools. Here are two versions:

1. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.
2. We make our tools, and then our tools make us.

I have not been able to find a good citation. Would you please help?

Quote Investigator: A thematic precursor to this saying appeared in the famous 1854 book “Walden” by U.S. naturalist and essayist Henry David Thoreau. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:¹

But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven.

Thoreau was writing a