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The importance of understanding references.

Yesterday I was going through Understanding Media with a student I privately tutor online when we got to the passage on Julien Benda's La Trahison de Clercs, or The Betrayal of Intellectuals, as is its English title. While big in its day, it's a hundred-year-old book, and so—like many of McLuhan's passing references—is long forgotten.

I read it last year…