Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/5

 on this score, resigning themselves to isolation within the confines of the "I". Khlebnikov's extreme optimism—expressed in his affirmation of the victory of the "We"—principle over the "I"—was bound up with his peculiar view of the nature of Time. Khlebnikov sensed a kinship between the tribal collectivism of the pre-literate past and an "electronic" collectivism of the "post-literate" (to use a term of Marshall McLuhan's) age of Radio. He saw the Russian revolution as a gigantic "Shift" (sdvig), a sudden joining together of the pre-literate past and the electronic future—both of which periods were characterized by language-forms which "united people".

(375 words).