On dualities, digital and otherwise

From Lance Strate’s trenchant 2008 article “Studying Media as Media“:

McLuhan’s emphasis on media effects has led some of his critics to label his approach as technological determinism. Technological determinism is a straw man used to caricature McLuhan as some sort of media Calvinist, and to dismiss his arguments without serious consideration. After all, most people get upset at the denial of free will, in theory as well as in practice. …

Free will does not mean freedom from limits, constraint...