A stable society was possible only with the development of mechanisms that pre-served both temporal and spatial orientations, that preserved compe-tition between religion and the state, and that preserved independ-ence and tension between the moral and the technica

Innis wanted to know what, in general, determines the location of ultimate authority in a society and what will be recognizd as authori-tative knowledge. His answer was this: That media of communi-cation, depending on their bias, confer monopolies of authority and knowledge on the state, the technical order, and civil law or on religion, the sacred... See more

Only knowledge that conformed to the concerns and cultural predisposi-tions of the dominant medium would persist. In a written tradition, knowledge must be technical, secular, and future-oriented for it to be defined as legitimate or recognized as valid