McLuhan successor at Toronto whom Bob cites in Dialogue 11 for emphasizing that the opposition of individual and collective "comes in with literacy" and was exaggerated by the printing press. Bob extends the point: the telegraph, movies, and radio stage a battle between collectivities, and the digital then flips back to retrieve "the super angelic individual against media collectivity" — a memetic anti-environment in which narcissism becomes a diagnostic fad.
Across the dialogues
His literacy/individual emphasis is the springboard for Bob's account of the digital flip
De Kerckhove emphasized that the individual-versus-collective opposition arrives with literacy, exaggerated by the printing press.
"the individual versus the collective comes in with literacy"
Bob's extension — after collectivities battle in the early electric era, the digital flips back to a super-angelic individual against media collectivity.
"the digital flipped into retrieving the super angelic individual against media collectivity"
Turned into the type of the McLuhan industry — the "switchboard" university president who mentions Bob but, in his "sloppy" save-the-world interview, never reads McLuhan actual problem
Bob reads de Kerckhove as the McLuhan industry's switchboard — the university president who flatters every department instead of being "critical of every one of them," and so shakes up no institution.
"this is Derek being the university president, nodding to all the departments of the industry and acknowledging everybody."
Bob's standing charge against de Kerckhove — his "save the world" interview is "not McLuhan method," resolving the fake-news and science-denial argument instead of explaining why it became an issue.
"Derek's sloppy thinking, sloppy perception, sloppy expression."
Cast as the exemplary bad McLuhanite — his contribution to the 2020 post-pandemic Zoom marathon is read as alarm rather than analysis
Named as the voice of the 2020 Zoom marathon's alarm and folded into Bob's blanket verdict on the institutional McLuhanites — the adverse reading is Bob's characterization, not a position de Kerckhove states here.
"that's what Derrick de Kerckhove said on the 12-hour McLuhan-esque marathon, exploring the post-pandemic world."
Connections
A McLuhan successor at Toronto whose emphasis on literacy and the individual Bob extends to the digital flip.