McLuhan writes, "The hybrid or the meeting of two media is a moment of truth and revelant from which new form is born. For the parallel between two media holds us on the frontiers between forms that snap us out of the Narcissus-narcosis. The moment of the meeting of media is a moment of freedom and release from the ordinary trance an numbness imposed by them on our senses." (Understanging Media, pg. 55.)
Spams are quickly making emails dysfunctional. The article, "Guess What? I don't have email", by W.D. Valgardson, of The Globe and Mail, Oct. 22, is a good example of how. Some people are, or have already converted to domain names and blogs as a new form of connectivity that will stay for some time until these new forms themselves also become overheated. According to McLuhan, overheating of a medium leads to reversals. (On reversals coming up later.) Blogs are one of these intriguing "hybrids" (or in my view, maybe even the 'meta'-hybrid) that McLuhan tries to inform us about as per quote above. He says that when we get hybrids (interprenetration of one medium by another), the violent release of energy (either by explosion or implosion, fusion or fission, this I am not so sure if I understand) snaps us out for a brief period from the "Narcissus-narcosis" in other words, "numbing" effect" (like the fish not knowing it is swimming in water, again.) McLuhan, in fact, sees this energy to be so violent as to call it a "civil war in media". The sometimes heated discussions that goes on about blogging does give one a sense of a "civil war", and it's happening in the electric medium! Hybrid energy is powerful stuff!
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