Print Media and Sequential Thought
The dominant organ of sensory and social orientation in pre-alphabet societies was the ear--hearing was believing.' The phonetic alphabet forced the magic world of the ear to yield to the neutral world of the eye. Man was given an eye for an ear. -Marshall McLuhan
 Much of the way we perceive our environment is through a sequence of visual events. The words on this page were meant to be read and processed by the brain one letter, one syllable, one sentence, and eventually one paragraph at a time. The sequencing of letters form a word, the sequencing of words form a sentence, and the sequencing of paragraphs forms an argument. This method of perception and comprehension was derived from the phonetic alphabet and print devices and technology.  According to Marshall McLuhan, "western history was shaped for some three thousand years by the introduction of the phonetic alephbet, a medium that depends solely on the eye for comprehension" (McLuhan, 1967, p. 44). Instead of relying on all of our primordial auditory sense to perceive our environment, we rely on the sequence of visual events captured by the eye. Relying on visual space has also brought about the need to rationalize our perceptions in order to make them continuous and uniform. Rationality, however is not a useful tool for perceiving environment because environment is a collective and shared experience, not a rational perspective from a fixed point of view. The ability to be rational also gives us the ability to be irrational. Using visuals space as the primary means of perception neglects the totality of the human sensory experience. Instead of perceiving things as they are, we attempt to rationalize that around us. Everything must follow a chain of meaning or else we cannot understand and involve ourselves in the world around us. This method of perception is also the foundation of our education system. Teachers instruct students and direct their rationality and perceptions. The problem with that is no two perceptions are alike. The instructor, who is often many times older than the student, may have a different perspective and rationalize things in a completely different way. Nonetheless students are still being shoved books, and required to sit and listen to hours of teachers instruction.
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