Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

by Marshall McLuhan

Baudelaire had the true intuition of number as a tactile hand or nervous system for interrelating separate units, when he said that “number is within the individual. Intoxication is a number.” That explains why “the pleasure of being in a crowd is a mysterious expression of delight in the multiplication of number.” Number, that is to say, is not only auditory and resonant, like the spoken word, but originates in the sense of touch, of which it is an extension. The statistical aggregation or crowding of numbers yields the current cave-drawings or finger-paintings of the statisticians’ charts. In every sense, the amassing of numbers statistically gives man a new influx of primitive intuition and magically subconscious awareness, whether of public taste or feeling: “You feel better satisfied when you use well-known brands.”