In his 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions Of Man, famed media scholar Marshall McLuhan wrote these words:

Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don’t really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth’s atmosphere to a company as a monopoly.

He was, of course, not speaking specifically of Net Neutrality as we currently know and debate it. McLuhan was speaking in the broad visionary terms required of the time he found himself in when he wrote those words - he was speaking of how electric technology is directly related to our nervous system. He saw, over 40 years ago, what we would be facing in very real terms today.

Something like this has already happened with outer space, for the same reasons that we have leased our central nervous systems to various corporations. As long as we adopt the Narcissus attitude of regarding the extensions of our own bodies as really out there and really independent of us, we will meet all technological challenges with the same sort of banana-skin pirouette and collapse.

Archimedes once said, “Give me a place to stand and I will move the world.” Today he would have pointed to our electric media and said, “I will stand on your eyes, your ears, your nerves, and your brain, and the world will move in any tempo or pattern I choose.” We have leased these “places to stand” to private corporations.

It behooves us to do as McLuhan advises and not pretend as though the media and techno soup we are swimming in is something that is out there and thus of lesser consequence to our existence. Not so.

It is us.

Let us not lease our eyes, ears and nerves to commercial interests.

Just some thoughts on some words from a wise man from many years ago. We didn’t (or couldn’t) listen then - perhaps now we can.

Cheers.