[00:02] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[00:02] Bob Dobbs: this is Cameron and Bob Dobbs.
[00:05] Bob Dobbs: Cameron McEwen and Bob Dobbs again on
[00:10] Bob Dobbs: Tuesday night for me,
[00:12] Bob Dobbs: November 10th,
[00:13] Bob Dobbs: 2020,
[00:15] Bob Dobbs: and the early morning after Cameron has slept off of November 10th,
[00:21] Bob Dobbs: so he's into November 11th,
[00:23] Bob Dobbs: 2020.
[00:25] Bob Dobbs: So that's the timing we're starting with.
[00:29] Bob Dobbs: 2.40 in the morning,
[00:30] Bob Dobbs: my time in Hawaii.
[00:32] Bob Dobbs: So
[00:33] Bob Dobbs: Cameron has read through my book,
[00:37] Bob Dobbs: book in quotes.
[00:38] Bob Dobbs: It's just a very long article,
[00:40] Bob Dobbs: 187 computer pages,
[00:43] Bob Dobbs: do I say?
[00:43] Bob Dobbs: PDF pages?
[00:45] Bob Dobbs: What are these pages?
[00:47] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[00:48] Cameron McEwen: well,
[00:48] Cameron McEwen: there's pages of the documents and there's PDF pages.
[00:52] Cameron McEwen: They're slightly different.
[00:55] Cameron McEwen: The document is 187 pages,
[00:59] Cameron McEwen: and the
[00:59] Cameron McEwen: PDF is 189.
[01:02] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[01:02] Bob Dobbs: so it's pretty close.
[01:04] Bob Dobbs: So
[01:05] Bob Dobbs: I posted this on October 31,
[01:08] Bob Dobbs: 2020,
[01:09] Bob Dobbs: and
[01:10] Bob Dobbs: I worked on it like three months about,
[01:14] Bob Dobbs: and I had help from another guy.
[01:17] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[01:18] Bob Dobbs: so let's,
[01:22] Bob Dobbs: Cameron,
[01:22] Bob Dobbs: begin with...
[01:24] Bob Dobbs: any ideas he has about it.
[01:27] Cameron McEwen: Sure.
[01:27] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[01:29] Cameron McEwen: one of the interesting things for me is that you self-consciously use different voices in the essay.
[01:39] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[01:40] Cameron McEwen: And it's sometimes hard to know which one you're using.
[01:46] Cameron McEwen: And it's interesting to think about how the different voices relate.
[01:52] Cameron McEwen: So what I mean by different voices is that you often speak in the voice of the person that you're either citing or talking about and they themselves may have different voices.
[02:07] Cameron McEwen: So for example,
[02:08] Cameron McEwen: your presentation of McLuhan is one where he has all sorts of different voices and your comments
[02:19] Cameron McEwen: about those voices themselves have different voices.
[02:23] Cameron McEwen: And so there's a kind of mirroring effect,
[02:26] Cameron McEwen: which we have to note as we go through your book.
[02:29] Cameron McEwen: And I'm interested to know your thoughts about it as we uncover examples of that.
[02:36] Bob Dobbs: Great.
[02:37] Bob Dobbs: This is good.
[02:39] Cameron McEwen: So then another thing I want to just mention at the start is that when I read anything,
[02:45] Cameron McEwen: I'm always interested to know what time is involved.
[02:50] Cameron McEwen: or even more than that,
[02:52] Cameron McEwen: what times,
[02:53] Cameron McEwen: plural,
[02:54] Cameron McEwen: are involved.
[02:55] Cameron McEwen: And the same with space and spaces.
[02:58] Cameron McEwen: So as we go into your book,
[03:04] Cameron McEwen: there are instances where you seem to be talking,
[03:10] Cameron McEwen: let's say,
[03:11] Cameron McEwen: in chronological time.
[03:13] Cameron McEwen: And to me,
[03:13] Cameron McEwen: it doesn't make sense in chronological time.
[03:17] Cameron McEwen: To me,
[03:18] Cameron McEwen: it...
[03:20] Cameron McEwen: For example,
[03:20] Cameron McEwen: some citation from McLuhan only makes sense in simultaneous time,
[03:26] Cameron McEwen: synchronic time.
[03:27] Cameron McEwen: And so we'll have to sort of ask questions about time and space as we go through the book.
[03:36] Cameron McEwen: And another question related to the voices question,
[03:41] Cameron McEwen: but more in the kind of third person,
[03:44] Cameron McEwen: is the question of who is
[03:48] Cameron McEwen: being talked about.
[03:51] Cameron McEwen: Right?
[03:52] Cameron McEwen: So some,
[03:52] Cameron McEwen: for example,
[03:53] Cameron McEwen: some,
[03:54] Cameron McEwen: there are sections of the book where you use the word people a lot.
[03:59] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[04:00] Cameron McEwen: But it's,
[04:00] Cameron McEwen: it's unclear just who these people are,
[04:05] Cameron McEwen: if they're a mass,
[04:08] Cameron McEwen: or if they're individuals together,
[04:11] Cameron McEwen: or just what.
[04:12] Cameron McEwen: And I,
[04:13] Cameron McEwen: to me,
[04:14] Cameron McEwen: the more I ask questions,
[04:17] Cameron McEwen: like these of your book,
[04:20] Cameron McEwen: the more interesting the book became.
[04:23] Cameron McEwen: And so
[04:23] Cameron McEwen: I think in a dialogue about it,
[04:27] Cameron McEwen: I believe that
[04:28] Cameron McEwen: I'm going to learn more about you and learn more about McLuhan.
[04:33] Cameron McEwen: But you yourself may find ways to amplify,
[04:39] Cameron McEwen: clarify your own mind.
[04:43] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[04:44] Cameron McEwen: So that'll be interesting as well.
[04:45] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[04:47] Cameron McEwen: Very good.
[04:51] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[04:52] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[04:52] Cameron McEwen: But another really important question that
[04:56] Cameron McEwen: I'd like us to keep in mind as we go through is...
[05:01] Cameron McEwen: what you were doing with this book.
[05:03] Cameron McEwen: So just as an example,
[05:07] Cameron McEwen: one of the things that you talk about in the book is technical thinking or technical reasoning and eventually getting into the tech body.
[05:19] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[05:19] Cameron McEwen: And so the question might be,
[05:22] Cameron McEwen: well,
[05:22] Cameron McEwen: are you doing something technical,
[05:25] Cameron McEwen: right,
[05:25] Cameron McEwen: which you sometimes contrast with satirical?
[05:31] Cameron McEwen: Or are you doing something related to the technical like science?
[05:37] Cameron McEwen: Or are you doing science fiction?
[05:40] Cameron McEwen: Or are you doing what you call prophetic poetry?
[05:43] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[05:43] Cameron McEwen: Or are you doing what is called complex clairvoyance?
[05:47] Cameron McEwen: So all of these questions need to be sort of asked about any statement.
[05:55] Cameron McEwen: And then it has to be wondered,
[05:56] Cameron McEwen: well,
[05:58] Cameron McEwen: Probably you're sometimes doing the one and sometimes doing the other.
[06:02] Cameron McEwen: And so then how do these relate?
[06:05] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[06:07] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[06:07] Cameron McEwen: So I'll just leave it at that.
[06:10] Cameron McEwen: I'd like to,
[06:11] Cameron McEwen: I guess what I'm saying is that when people are thinking and when they're conducting a good dialogue,
[06:20] Cameron McEwen: probably the most important thing going on is questioning.
[06:26] Cameron McEwen: And questioning.
[06:28] Cameron McEwen: not in the sense of necessarily leading to something,
[06:32] Cameron McEwen: but questioning as inherently good and revealing in itself.
[06:38] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[06:41] Bob Dobbs: that's what you'd like to do.
[06:42] Cameron McEwen: That's all I have to say at the start.
[06:45] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[06:45] Bob Dobbs: so that's a very good statement.
[06:49] Bob Dobbs: Do we begin with a question?
[06:53] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[06:56] Cameron McEwen: what I've done...
[06:57] Cameron McEwen: with your book is mark up passages,
[07:02] Cameron McEwen: sometimes have sticky notes in them,
[07:07] Cameron McEwen: and what we could do is just start out on page one and then just sort of keep on going.
[07:18] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[07:19] Cameron McEwen: But my preferred way of tackling this thing would be to start
[07:27] Cameron McEwen: a little bit later on around page 40 and go from page 40 to 60 or so and then go back to page one because i think the that section from 40 to 60 or 65 whatever it is um
[07:45] Cameron McEwen: is very rich and um helps uh to set out um what's going on in your book okay so let me
[07:56] Bob Dobbs: State my goal,
[07:57] Bob Dobbs: ostensible goal.
[08:00] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[08:01] Bob Dobbs: Did you know about the spring,
[08:05] Bob Dobbs: April,
[08:06] Bob Dobbs: May,
[08:07] Bob Dobbs: June webinars that Paolo Granata ran?
[08:13] Cameron McEwen: No.
[08:14] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[08:14] Bob Dobbs: so in April,
[08:17] Bob Dobbs: people were into the lockdown.
[08:20] Bob Dobbs: They had to be,
[08:21] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[08:21] Bob Dobbs: stay in their home and that,
[08:22] Bob Dobbs: a lot of the places.
[08:24] Bob Dobbs: So he...
[08:25] Bob Dobbs: got together,
[08:26] Bob Dobbs: put out an invite to all the
[08:28] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan scholars around the world that he would like to talk to them about what's the meaning of this virus and whatever other stuff that's related to McLuhan.
[08:39] Bob Dobbs: And so he picked three or four each week or every other week.
[08:44] Bob Dobbs: I can't remember.
[08:45] Bob Dobbs: Maybe it was every week.
[08:48] Bob Dobbs: And they'd be around the world,
[08:49] Bob Dobbs: and he'd interview each one,
[08:50] Bob Dobbs: and then get them talking and see.
[08:54] Bob Dobbs: if they could use the Zoom medium and make a nice building up of community of McLuhan scholars.
[09:03] Bob Dobbs: So he did that.
[09:05] Bob Dobbs: And I watched,
[09:07] Bob Dobbs: I don't think I missed any.
[09:08] Bob Dobbs: I watched them all,
[09:10] Bob Dobbs: not often live,
[09:12] Bob Dobbs: but after they were done,
[09:15] Bob Dobbs: so I could rewind and stuff.
[09:19] Bob Dobbs: And
[09:20] Bob Dobbs: I was quite...
[09:23] Bob Dobbs: I don't know if I was appalled,
[09:25] Bob Dobbs: but
[09:25] Bob Dobbs: I found it very boring or very tedious or very not worthy of McLuhan.
[09:37] Bob Dobbs: Nobody seemed to be handling the new situation with the COVID virus and lockdown with any vitality like McLuhan seemed to me would always do.
[09:48] Bob Dobbs: So
[09:49] Bob Dobbs: I was thinking by the end of it that
[09:52] Bob Dobbs: Since most of these people were in their
[09:54] Bob Dobbs: 40s, 50s,
[09:54] Bob Dobbs: or 60s,
[09:56] Bob Dobbs: a few younger people in their
[09:58] Bob Dobbs: 20s, new professors and that,
[10:00] Bob Dobbs: or adjunct professors,
[10:04] Bob Dobbs: Why would any younger person of different kinds of education,
[10:09] Bob Dobbs: but why would anybody be interested in what they were talking about?
[10:14] Bob Dobbs: Basically,
[10:15] Bob Dobbs: they stuck with the cliche aphorisms of McLuhan,
[10:20] Bob Dobbs: the medium is the message,
[10:22] Bob Dobbs: the user is the content,
[10:23] Bob Dobbs: the global village,
[10:26] Bob Dobbs: the tetrad,
[10:26] Bob Dobbs: and media ecology.
[10:29] Bob Dobbs: And for me,
[10:30] Bob Dobbs: there was nothing to attract them.
[10:33] Bob Dobbs: To attract what they were talking about,
[10:35] Bob Dobbs: their ideas,
[10:36] Bob Dobbs: that I had gotten from McLuhan back in the
[10:40] Bob Dobbs: 1560s.
[10:41] Bob Dobbs: Nothing revolutionary.
[10:43] Bob Dobbs: Now maybe this is too high a demand on people,
[10:46] Bob Dobbs: but
[10:46] Bob Dobbs: I thought,
[10:47] Bob Dobbs: there's no vitality,
[10:50] Bob Dobbs: no authority,
[10:51] Bob Dobbs: no charisma,
[10:52] Bob Dobbs: nothing going on here.
[10:54] Bob Dobbs: And when I did talk to some of the younger people,
[10:57] Bob Dobbs: they kind of agreed with me.
[11:00] Bob Dobbs: They didn't really get much out of it.
[11:03] Bob Dobbs: So then
[11:06] Bob Dobbs: Paolo Granata ended up on July 21st,
[11:08] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan birthday,
[11:11] Bob Dobbs: to do a
[11:12] Bob Dobbs: 12-hour marathon.
[11:14] Bob Dobbs: And he brought back the same people,
[11:15] Bob Dobbs: basically,
[11:16] Bob Dobbs: to be there all day long and interact with everybody.
[11:20] Bob Dobbs: And that occurred.
[11:23] Bob Dobbs: And that didn't create any new spark for me.
[11:27] Bob Dobbs: But it clinched the issue that something had to be done about this.
[11:31] Bob Dobbs: So I put on a mission.
[11:34] Bob Dobbs: I'm going to make McLuhan relevant to today somehow.
[11:38] Bob Dobbs: I didn't know if I could do it.
[11:40] Bob Dobbs: I had a few hints of bringing him up to the present,
[11:44] Bob Dobbs: but
[11:45] Bob Dobbs: I started out just gathering quotations,
[11:48] Bob Dobbs: and I have a good memory for his whole span of work.
[11:52] Bob Dobbs: Then I do a sidebar here.
[11:54] Bob Dobbs: Were there any quotes that
[11:55] Bob Dobbs: I came up with that you didn't know?
[12:00] Cameron McEwen: I don't know if that was the case,
[12:04] Cameron McEwen: but a few of them
[12:08] Cameron McEwen: I hadn't really thought about in a way that you brought out,
[12:13] Cameron McEwen: and I found that very helpful.
[12:15] Bob Dobbs: Good.
[12:16] Bob Dobbs: So
[12:17] Bob Dobbs: I've read enough McLuhan to know the good quotes,
[12:21] Bob Dobbs: the esoteric ones,
[12:22] Bob Dobbs: the ones that are never discussed.
[12:24] Bob Dobbs: And that was another one of my complaints.
[12:26] Bob Dobbs: No one ever talks about the really neat,
[12:28] Bob Dobbs: juicy quotes.
[12:30] Bob Dobbs: that I'm used to looking at that people don't know about.
[12:34] Bob Dobbs: Either they haven't read enough McLuhan or they didn't understand it.
[12:37] Bob Dobbs: And they just kept it to simple basics.
[12:39] Bob Dobbs: So
[12:41] Bob Dobbs: I was trying to find the best and most obscure quotes,
[12:45] Bob Dobbs: but also they had to help me develop my theme.
[12:49] Bob Dobbs: And my theme was to bring
[12:50] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan right up to today and relate McLuhan to this phenomenon that I call the tech body.
[13:00] Bob Dobbs: which has developed between me and my colleagues,
[13:04] Bob Dobbs: esoteric colleagues.
[13:05] Bob Dobbs: And
[13:07] Bob Dobbs: I've just been talking about it for a year,
[13:11] Bob Dobbs: and so I wondered if I could do it.
[13:14] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[13:15] Bob Dobbs: so then
[13:17] Bob Dobbs: I gather together all these quotes,
[13:24] Bob Dobbs: and I type them up.
[13:26] Bob Dobbs: And
[13:26] Bob Dobbs: I make really sure that my quotes are properly...
[13:30] Bob Dobbs: punctuated and grammatically correct.
[13:33] Bob Dobbs: You probably didn't find many spelling mistakes or any grammatical mistakes.
[13:39] Bob Dobbs: Do you recall any?
[13:41] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[13:42] Cameron McEwen: I've sent a few to Clinton.
[13:44] Cameron McEwen: Okay.
[13:45] Cameron McEwen: But they were just minor.
[13:48] Cameron McEwen: I would notice that maybe there was a letter missing or something.
[13:54] Cameron McEwen: So they were mostly typos that I found.
[13:56] Cameron McEwen: They weren't spelling mistakes.
[13:58] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[13:59] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[13:59] Bob Dobbs: so
[14:00] Bob Dobbs: I did that.
[14:03] Bob Dobbs: Then I sent them to a friend in Zurich,
[14:05] Bob Dobbs: Switzerland,
[14:07] Bob Dobbs: who's been studying McLuhan the last couple of years.
[14:10] Bob Dobbs: He came to it late in his life,
[14:12] Bob Dobbs: but he's really being diligent.
[14:15] Bob Dobbs: So I asked him to ask me questions about them.
[14:21] Bob Dobbs: And so I'd have to explain them in an oral,
[14:23] Bob Dobbs: casual way.
[14:27] Bob Dobbs: So we did that.
[14:28] Bob Dobbs: And then...
[14:29] Bob Dobbs: He transcribed the written,
[14:33] Bob Dobbs: the spoken parts,
[14:34] Bob Dobbs: and then he sent them back to me,
[14:36] Bob Dobbs: and I had to fine-tune it,
[14:38] Bob Dobbs: make it perfect,
[14:40] Bob Dobbs: his transcription,
[14:40] Bob Dobbs: because he put every mumble and ah,
[14:43] Bob Dobbs: ooh,
[14:44] Bob Dobbs: but in there.
[14:46] Bob Dobbs: So that took a while to clean that up,
[14:50] Bob Dobbs: make it perfect,
[14:50] Bob Dobbs: but still be conversational.
[14:53] Bob Dobbs: So those are started with the word Bob colon.
[14:57] Bob Dobbs: So Bob's...
[14:58] Bob Dobbs: speaking.
[15:03] Bob Dobbs: I don't include
[15:05] Bob Dobbs: Bert's questions,
[15:08] Bob Dobbs: Bert Hill.
[15:11] Bob Dobbs: My answers are not necessarily unique.
[15:17] Bob Dobbs: They just go over what the quote said.
[15:20] Bob Dobbs: Some of them are just pedestrian.
[15:22] Bob Dobbs: So
[15:23] Bob Dobbs: I did that,
[15:25] Bob Dobbs: and so then
[15:28] Bob Dobbs: I now had the quotes and my conversation.
[15:33] Bob Dobbs: So I thought it was neat to have an essay style going through connecting the quotes,
[15:39] Bob Dobbs: but also have this conversational,
[15:40] Bob Dobbs: so two tracks.
[15:43] Bob Dobbs: And that took a long time to do.
[15:46] Bob Dobbs: My prose part,
[15:48] Bob Dobbs: where I link the quotes and make a story or a narrative,
[15:54] Bob Dobbs: is not jargon-filled.
[15:57] Bob Dobbs: It is rather mundane and plain.
[16:02] Bob Dobbs: It's just simple to me.
[16:04] Bob Dobbs: You know,
[16:05] Bob Dobbs: I'm not making a novel or anything.
[16:07] Bob Dobbs: So I organized all that,
[16:10] Bob Dobbs: and I felt it worked.
[16:12] Bob Dobbs: I got to where I wanted to go,
[16:15] Bob Dobbs: and I was pretty happy about that.
[16:17] Bob Dobbs: So then I had to put it out to the community,
[16:20] Bob Dobbs: or at least the first part of the community that were interested.
[16:24] Bob Dobbs: And,
[16:24] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[16:25] Bob Dobbs: it's been a couple of weeks.
[16:27] Bob Dobbs: No,
[16:28] Bob Dobbs: it's only been 10 days.
[16:29] Bob Dobbs: And so far I've gotten,
[16:31] Bob Dobbs: quote,
[16:31] Bob Dobbs: this.
[16:32] Bob Dobbs: friendly reviews.
[16:34] Bob Dobbs: People liked it.
[16:35] Bob Dobbs: So that was good.
[16:37] Bob Dobbs: And that's where we're at now.
[16:38] Bob Dobbs: There's just a few people who've read it,
[16:40] Bob Dobbs: though I think Clinton said they put it on the New Explorations blog,
[16:45] Bob Dobbs: the New Explorations journal,
[16:46] Bob Dobbs: is it maybe?
[16:47] Bob Dobbs: Blog.
[16:48] Bob Dobbs: And they got a lot of hits.
[16:50] Bob Dobbs: Not that everybody read much of it,
[16:52] Bob Dobbs: but there was some interest in it.
[16:54] Bob Dobbs: And I've noticed a few people that I know have read it using
[17:01] Bob Dobbs: I know they discovered some new quotes that they liked and they used them in
[17:06] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan form.
[17:07] Bob Dobbs: So that's good.
[17:09] Bob Dobbs: Get some new stuff out there.
[17:11] Bob Dobbs: And the punchline was,
[17:16] Bob Dobbs: if someone asked me,
[17:17] Bob Dobbs: what did McLuhan say?
[17:20] Bob Dobbs: What was he about?
[17:22] Bob Dobbs: Can you sum up his ideas?
[17:24] Bob Dobbs: And I decided on this quote from Take Today.
[17:27] Bob Dobbs: I don't have the exact page number,
[17:28] Bob Dobbs: but it's around 210 take today,
[17:31] Bob Dobbs: where McLuhan is talking about the novel Catch-22.
[17:35] Bob Dobbs: And he says,
[17:37] Bob Dobbs: in Catch-22,
[17:39] Bob Dobbs: we have a situation where,
[17:40] Bob Dobbs: this is approximate,
[17:42] Bob Dobbs: where the war merges with the black market.
[17:50] Bob Dobbs: And so he then,
[17:51] Bob Dobbs: I think it's in italics,
[17:53] Bob Dobbs: he says,
[17:54] Bob Dobbs: this leads to a situation
[17:56] Bob Dobbs: where every financial transaction drips blood.
[18:00] Bob Dobbs: So I thought that's a fantastic,
[18:02] Bob Dobbs: interesting statement of the way the 20th century has been,
[18:07] Bob Dobbs: if you look at the more violent parts of society and the underground parts.
[18:12] Bob Dobbs: And you're stating a situation...
[18:15] Cameron McEwen: Not only the
[18:16] Cameron McEwen: 20th century.
[18:17] Bob Dobbs: Beg your pardon?
[18:18] Cameron McEwen: Not only the 20th century.
[18:21] Bob Dobbs: No,
[18:21] Bob Dobbs: but we...
[18:21] Cameron McEwen: 21st as well.
[18:22] Bob Dobbs: Yes,
[18:23] Bob Dobbs: but these are big wars.
[18:25] Bob Dobbs: big markets,
[18:26] Bob Dobbs: global situation.
[18:28] Bob Dobbs: Maybe the wars and violence has always happened,
[18:31] Bob Dobbs: white and black markets,
[18:32] Bob Dobbs: but it's sort of unique and entertainment is built off it.
[18:36] Bob Dobbs: So much of entertainment is about these scenarios,
[18:39] Bob Dobbs: the cops and robbers and the war movies.
[18:42] Bob Dobbs: So
[18:43] Bob Dobbs: I thought,
[18:43] Bob Dobbs: okay,
[18:44] Bob Dobbs: that's what McLuhan wanted people to realize,
[18:47] Bob Dobbs: because there's been so many movements toward peace or dreams of peace all through the 20th century.
[18:55] Bob Dobbs: dreams of reforming society,
[18:56] Bob Dobbs: all kinds of different inspirations of our situation.
[19:00] Bob Dobbs: So it's an effect.
[19:03] Bob Dobbs: But
[19:04] Bob Dobbs: I point out that the cause and effects merge.
[19:07] Bob Dobbs: And no one knows that quote.
[19:09] Bob Dobbs: I've never met anybody who knew it.
[19:11] Bob Dobbs: So
[19:14] Bob Dobbs: I end the essay by saying,
[19:15] Bob Dobbs: okay,
[19:15] Bob Dobbs: so next time someone asks you what McLuhan said,
[19:18] Bob Dobbs: say this quote.
[19:20] Bob Dobbs: So don't say the old cliches.
[19:22] Bob Dobbs: Make people think again.
[19:25] Bob Dobbs: Why would every transaction drip blood?
[19:28] Bob Dobbs: So that in essence is what I did.
[19:32] Bob Dobbs: So I now let you ask a question.
[19:37] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[19:40] Cameron McEwen: I guess what I would say,
[19:42] Cameron McEwen: I don't listen to the sort of webinar that you're talking about simply because
[19:49] Cameron McEwen: I don't find them at all surprising.
[19:53] Cameron McEwen: I think.
[19:54] Cameron McEwen: What you were saying is that if you listen to what McLuhan says and attend to what he writes.
[20:05] Cameron McEwen: If you're going to understand it,
[20:07] Cameron McEwen: you have to be open to being surprised.
[20:11] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[20:12] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan always said,
[20:13] Cameron McEwen: I don't write to put down what I already know.
[20:19] Cameron McEwen: I write in the hope of learning something.
[20:23] Cameron McEwen: And the same with this conversation.
[20:25] Cameron McEwen: So when people parrot stuff,
[20:28] Cameron McEwen: as you were saying that they...
[20:30] Cameron McEwen: inherited things about the medium as a message and the global village and stuff.
[20:36] Cameron McEwen: They're not understanding sort of the heart of McLuhan,
[20:40] Cameron McEwen: which has to do with the birth of insight.
[20:45] Bob Dobbs: Yes,
[20:47] Bob Dobbs: I agree 100%
[20:48] Bob Dobbs: there.
[20:49] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[20:50] Cameron McEwen: So
[20:51] Cameron McEwen: I'm hoping that as we go through your book,
[20:55] Cameron McEwen: that we not only find evidence.
[20:59] Cameron McEwen: of the birth of insight in the quotations and in what you say about them,
[21:05] Cameron McEwen: but in the exchange between ourselves.
[21:07] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[21:09] Bob Dobbs: Yep,
[21:09] Bob Dobbs: the exchange is part of the book.
[21:12] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.
[21:13] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.
[21:13] Cameron McEwen: It's the heart,
[21:18] Cameron McEwen: I believe,
[21:19] Cameron McEwen: of the anti-environment and of what McLuhan often means by technology.
[21:29] Bob Dobbs: Exactly.
[21:30] Bob Dobbs: Correct.
[21:31] Bob Dobbs: Yep.
[21:35] Bob Dobbs: So go to page 40.
[21:38] Bob Dobbs: OK,
[21:38] Bob Dobbs: well,
[21:38] Bob Dobbs: what do you think of the opening quote about no conflict?
[21:43] Bob Dobbs: No politician is immune from conflict of interest.
[21:48] Bob Dobbs: You ever seen that quote?
[21:53] Cameron McEwen: Where are you on that?
[21:54] Bob Dobbs: That's on page one.
[21:56] Bob Dobbs: There's two quotes at the very beginning.
[21:58] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[21:58] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[21:59] Cameron McEwen: Okay,
[21:59] Cameron McEwen: good.
[22:00] Cameron McEwen: So,
[22:00] Cameron McEwen: no,
[22:01] Cameron McEwen: I'm unfamiliar with this interview with
[22:06] Cameron McEwen: David Sohn.
[22:07] Bob Dobbs: Yes,
[22:08] Bob Dobbs: who was an old fan of McLuhan,
[22:09] Bob Dobbs: an American,
[22:10] Bob Dobbs: I think.
[22:12] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[22:12] Cameron McEwen: no,
[22:12] Cameron McEwen: I have no idea who he is.
[22:14] Cameron McEwen: And
[22:16] Cameron McEwen: I've never seen anything of that interview.
[22:22] Cameron McEwen: To me,
[22:22] Cameron McEwen: there's nothing surprising in that quotation.
[22:31] Cameron McEwen: stuff that he was constantly aware of,
[22:35] Cameron McEwen: even as a kid growing up in Winnipeg.
[22:39] Cameron McEwen: But it's nice to have it in a little package like that.
[22:43] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[22:44] Bob Dobbs: now,
[22:46] Bob Dobbs: the first quote is,
[22:48] Bob Dobbs: to analyze media,
[22:49] Bob Dobbs: you've got to have a superior arrogant attitude.
[22:52] Bob Dobbs: That's a very important quote,
[22:54] Bob Dobbs: because what does that mean,
[22:56] Bob Dobbs: and what's he doing?
[22:59] Bob Dobbs: I don't think in education they encourage that attitude.
[23:05] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?
[23:05] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[23:07] Cameron McEwen: Yes,
[23:07] Cameron McEwen: well,
[23:08] Cameron McEwen: I understand what you're saying,
[23:09] Cameron McEwen: but I'm not sure that that's what McLuhan was talking about.
[23:13] Cameron McEwen: For example,
[23:14] Cameron McEwen: in the quotation,
[23:15] Cameron McEwen: the word attitude doesn't appear.
[23:20] Cameron McEwen: You mean
[23:21] Bob Dobbs: I have the quotation wrong or I just said it wrong?
[23:24] Cameron McEwen: No,
[23:24] Cameron McEwen: It just
[23:27] Cameron McEwen: But...
[23:27] Cameron McEwen: The quotation is,
[23:28] Cameron McEwen: the road to understanding media effects begins with arrogant superiority.
[23:35] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[23:35] Bob Dobbs: yeah.
[23:36] Cameron McEwen: If one lacked this sense of superiority,
[23:39] Cameron McEwen: this detachment,
[23:41] Cameron McEwen: it would be quite impossible to write about them.
[23:44] Cameron McEwen: It would be like an octopus attacking the Great Pyramid.
[23:49] Cameron McEwen: That's a wonderful,
[23:50] Cameron McEwen: wonderful line.
[23:52] Cameron McEwen: It's,
[23:52] Cameron McEwen: I think,
[23:53] Cameron McEwen: from the
[23:54] Cameron McEwen: Hot and Cold interview.
[23:57] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[23:57] Bob Dobbs: Gerald Stearn.
[23:59] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[23:59] Cameron McEwen: so he doesn't talk about an attitude.
[24:02] Cameron McEwen: And to me,
[24:03] Cameron McEwen: the whole question of what an arrogant superiority is,
[24:07] Cameron McEwen: is very,
[24:08] Cameron McEwen: very important.
[24:09] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[24:12] Cameron McEwen: One of the things that
[24:14] Cameron McEwen: I hope we'll get into a lot in the book is that
[24:19] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan often talks in terms of figure and ground or of cliche and archetype.
[24:27] Cameron McEwen: and of center and margin and many,
[24:29] Cameron McEwen: many other things where for him,
[24:33] Cameron McEwen: it's very important to understand the set of permutations between these pairs.
[24:43] Cameron McEwen: So that what is cliche can also be archetype.
[24:49] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[24:49] Cameron McEwen: And what the difference is between them also varies.
[24:54] Cameron McEwen: So you can have something that is...
[24:58] Cameron McEwen: cliche that is figure to archetypal ground,
[25:01] Cameron McEwen: but the difference between that figure and ground.
[25:06] Cameron McEwen: and vary,
[25:07] Cameron McEwen: right?
[25:07] Cameron McEwen: And so you have a whole set of variations of these pairs.
[25:17] Cameron McEwen: And the difference between the various instances of these pairs might be called identification or a
[25:36] Cameron McEwen: marking or a privileging or a valorizing of one configuration of them.
[25:44] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[25:44] Cameron McEwen: And to me,
[25:46] Cameron McEwen: the key to arrogant superiority is the idea that this kind of marking and privileging is always present,
[25:57] Cameron McEwen: but it's a variable.
[26:00] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[26:00] Cameron McEwen: And it may be that one of the things that has
[26:05] Cameron McEwen: prevented us from rigorous thinking when it comes to the humanities and the social sciences is that we've failed to understand this what might be called this arrogant superiority to
[26:24] Cameron McEwen: the possible modulations of figure and ground and center and margin etc right and so when he Because if one lacked this sense of...
[26:35] Cameron McEwen: superiority,
[26:36] Cameron McEwen: this detachment,
[26:37] Cameron McEwen: it would be quite impossible to write about them.
[26:41] Cameron McEwen: Later,
[26:42] Cameron McEwen: you mentioned satellite man and the conductor,
[26:49] Cameron McEwen: right?
[26:49] Cameron McEwen: And for me,
[26:51] Cameron McEwen: the satellite man and the conductor has to do with this superiority that is always present in the modulations of our perceptions,
[27:02] Cameron McEwen: but is unknown.
[27:05] Cameron McEwen: in the humanities and social sciences.
[27:08] Cameron McEwen: And therefore,
[27:10] Cameron McEwen: they never get too rigor.
[27:15] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[27:16] Bob Dobbs: very good.
[27:18] Bob Dobbs: Well said.
[27:20] Cameron McEwen: Thank you.
[27:21] Bob Dobbs: So that opening quote,
[27:23] Bob Dobbs: you have the superiority arrogance.
[27:28] Bob Dobbs: And then he makes,
[27:29] Bob Dobbs: to most people,
[27:30] Bob Dobbs: I think,
[27:32] Bob Dobbs: back in the
[27:33] Bob Dobbs: 70s, maybe not so much now,
[27:35] Bob Dobbs: To say that every politician has a conflict of interest,
[27:37] Bob Dobbs: you're going to get a lot of protests from politicians.
[27:42] Bob Dobbs: So that was a good example of him doing that and ruffling the feathers of people.
[27:49] Cameron McEwen: Sure.
[27:50] Cameron McEwen: But it's a good example of the application of arrogant superiority.
[27:55] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[27:57] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[27:57] Cameron McEwen: Arrogant superiority is always there,
[28:01] Cameron McEwen: but it's...
[28:03] Cameron McEwen: either unconscious or not admitted,
[28:05] Cameron McEwen: right?
[28:06] Cameron McEwen: So that when the politician has a conflict of interest,
[28:10] Cameron McEwen: the last thing that that politician is going to do is admit to the sort of superiority that is embedded in what they're doing.
[28:19] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[28:21] Cameron McEwen: Right?
[28:21] Cameron McEwen: They're privileging a certain way of being that is eminently questionable,
[28:26] Cameron McEwen: but their role depends on not questioning it.
[28:29] Cameron McEwen: Or at least if they question it themselves.
[28:32] Cameron McEwen: preventing others from questioning it.
[28:35] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[28:36] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[28:37] Bob Dobbs: so that was,
[28:38] Bob Dobbs: I thought,
[28:38] Bob Dobbs: was a great quote to start off,
[28:40] Bob Dobbs: and it illustrated the first quote,
[28:42] Bob Dobbs: and I knew it was an obscure quote.
[28:44] Bob Dobbs: I think David Desson,
[28:46] Bob Dobbs: when I went through the archives,
[28:49] Bob Dobbs: he was an American businessman,
[28:52] Bob Dobbs: not a professor or anything,
[28:53] Bob Dobbs: who just had a real enthusiasm about McLuhan,
[28:56] Bob Dobbs: and occasionally he'd be written up in his local town as a McLuhan enthusiast.
[29:01] Bob Dobbs: So he showed...
[29:02] Bob Dobbs: So he shows up with McLuhan,
[29:03] Bob Dobbs: and he probably has no avenue to get the interview published,
[29:06] Bob Dobbs: but I got a transcript that
[29:09] Bob Dobbs: Marge Stewart did,
[29:10] Bob Dobbs: and George gave it to me,
[29:11] Bob Dobbs: George Thompson,
[29:13] Bob Dobbs: and there's a lot of other good stuff in it.
[29:15] Bob Dobbs: And it was McLuhan talking to a curious,
[29:20] Bob Dobbs: I won't say average,
[29:21] Bob Dobbs: but a curious businessman.
[29:23] Bob Dobbs: The people that McLuhan used to say,
[29:25] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[29:25] Bob Dobbs: feel the effects of the new media immediately.
[29:28] Bob Dobbs: So it was an example of McLuhan.
[29:31] Bob Dobbs: Not just being an academic.
[29:34] Bob Dobbs: He was an advisor to everybody.
[29:38] Cameron McEwen: Sure.
[29:40] Bob Dobbs: Which I liked about McLuhan.
[29:41] Bob Dobbs: So that's a good example of that interview.
[29:47] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.
[29:48] Cameron McEwen: I quite agree.
[29:49] Cameron McEwen: And I noticed how that relates to this question of superiority.
[29:53] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[29:55] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan could not.
[30:01] Cameron McEwen: fixate himself to a certain mask,
[30:04] Cameron McEwen: a certain role.
[30:05] Cameron McEwen: He couldn't be just an academic.
[30:09] Cameron McEwen: just a business consultant or just the father in a family or something.
[30:16] Cameron McEwen: For him,
[30:18] Cameron McEwen: the putting on of a mask and taking off the mask and going to another mask was the heart of the matter.
[30:25] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[30:25] Cameron McEwen: And he he knew that this was something that everybody always does,
[30:31] Cameron McEwen: is constantly doing.
[30:34] Cameron McEwen: But it's not admitted and it's not.
[30:37] Cameron McEwen: applied to our own thinking.
[30:39] Cameron McEwen: And it's because we refuse this application of what we're always doing that we don't get to anything interesting in the humanities and social sciences.
[30:51] Bob Dobbs: Yes,
[30:52] Bob Dobbs: perfect.
[30:53] Bob Dobbs: Very good point.
[30:55] Bob Dobbs: You got two bingos there,
[30:56] Bob Dobbs: Cameron,
[30:57] Bob Dobbs: already.
[30:58] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[30:58] Cameron McEwen: thank you.
[31:02] Bob Dobbs: So yes,
[31:02] Bob Dobbs: people,
[31:03] Bob Dobbs: enjoy the variety of McLuhan.
[31:06] Bob Dobbs: Enjoy his.
[31:08] Bob Dobbs: He's every man.
[31:09] Bob Dobbs: You know,
[31:09] Bob Dobbs: when Barry Nevitt and Maurice McLuhan,
[31:12] Bob Dobbs: Marshall's brother,
[31:14] Bob Dobbs: did that book,
[31:14] Bob Dobbs: Who Was Marshall McLuhan or Who Is Marshall McLuhan?
[31:17] Bob Dobbs: I think it was was.
[31:19] Bob Dobbs: They interview a lot of friends.
[31:21] Bob Dobbs: And the book is dedicated to HCE,
[31:24] Bob Dobbs: which refers to Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker and Finnegans Wake,
[31:27] Bob Dobbs: who's also Here Comes Everybody.
[31:29] Bob Dobbs: I think that that was a great understanding of one of them or both of them,
[31:33] Bob Dobbs: that that's what McLuhan was.
[31:34] Bob Dobbs: He was HCE.
[31:36] Bob Dobbs: Here comes everybody.
[31:37] Bob Dobbs: He figured out how to circulate in all the worlds of society,
[31:45] Bob Dobbs: like a newspaper,
[31:46] Bob Dobbs: the cross-section of society.
[31:48] Bob Dobbs: And that would be a modern observer role of traditional artists.
[31:55] Bob Dobbs: We were seeing a person observe and put themselves into all kinds of strange situations that other people would be very timid to do.
[32:05] Bob Dobbs: He was HCE,
[32:06] Bob Dobbs: and I think that's who Barry means when he dedicates it.
[32:10] Bob Dobbs: But it also means everybody also,
[32:12] Bob Dobbs: everybody anyways.
[32:13] Bob Dobbs: But
[32:14] Bob Dobbs: I like the fact the book was dedicated to Marshall as HCE,
[32:18] Bob Dobbs: and you just explained how he was,
[32:22] Bob Dobbs: and we are
[32:23] Bob Dobbs: HCE.
[32:24] Bob Dobbs: But we aren't very articulate about it,
[32:30] Bob Dobbs: about the process of being HCE.
[32:34] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[32:34] Cameron McEwen: it's mostly put aside as,
[32:37] Cameron McEwen: I mean,
[32:38] Cameron McEwen: if people have any awareness of it at all,
[32:41] Cameron McEwen: they just talk about the masks themselves,
[32:47] Cameron McEwen: which is the message,
[32:49] Cameron McEwen: and they don't talk about the medium between the masks or between the messages,
[32:56] Cameron McEwen: which for
[32:57] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was the heart of the matter.
[32:59] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[32:59] Bob Dobbs: that's a good point.
[33:03] Bob Dobbs: People talked about the content and basically had emotional responses to people's masks and criticized people's masks.
[33:13] Bob Dobbs: Too subjective,
[33:15] Bob Dobbs: their response to the medium.
[33:19] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[33:20] Cameron McEwen: the criticisms can't be cogent if they're simply...
[33:30] Cameron McEwen: talking at the level of content because the content always comes in some context and if you're not aware of the relationship between the content and the context,
[33:47] Cameron McEwen: then it's just superficial.
[33:50] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[33:51] Bob Dobbs: that's right.
[33:52] Bob Dobbs: Hypocrisy.
[33:54] Bob Dobbs: Hypocrite lecture.
[33:58] Bob Dobbs: Hippocrite.
[33:59] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[34:00] Bob Dobbs: Bon vivant.
[34:04] Bob Dobbs: Lecture is reader.
[34:06] Bob Dobbs: That's what.
[34:06] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[34:06] Cameron McEwen: that was Baudelaire.
[34:07] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[34:07] Bob Dobbs: 1857 or so.
[34:11] Bob Dobbs: But people,
[34:14] Bob Dobbs: the main mass maybe that people want themselves to be regarded as a success of life is to be a bon vivant,
[34:24] Bob Dobbs: to have lived here and enjoyed life.
[34:28] Bob Dobbs: But you don't see much of that consciously.
[34:32] Cameron McEwen: I would say that the main mask is the unquestioned mask.
[34:42] Cameron McEwen: All right.
[34:42] Cameron McEwen: People want to present a face.
[34:45] Cameron McEwen: They don't care what face it is as long as it's taken to be a non-anxious face.
[34:54] Cameron McEwen: Yes.
[34:54] Cameron McEwen: A non-self-questioned face,
[34:57] Cameron McEwen: right?
[34:57] Cameron McEwen: So you can be a priest or a maverick or whatever.
[35:05] Cameron McEwen: The main thing,
[35:07] Cameron McEwen: the trick to existence is to present that mask or role as self-convinced.
[35:20] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[35:20] Bob Dobbs: a cool knowing mask.
[35:23] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[35:24] Bob Dobbs: And I was just thinking,
[35:25] Bob Dobbs: that's fatic communion,
[35:26] Bob Dobbs: isn't it?
[35:27] Bob Dobbs: Fatic communication.
[35:29] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[35:30] Cameron McEwen: yeah,
[35:31] Bob Dobbs: yeah.
[35:31] Bob Dobbs: You're a good fatic...
[35:32] Bob Dobbs: Remember McClellan had that quote?
[35:34] Bob Dobbs: I love the way he nods.
[35:35] Bob Dobbs: He really communicates.
[35:39] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[35:43] Cameron McEwen: That might even have been a
[35:45] Cameron McEwen: New Yorker cartoon.
[35:47] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[35:49] Bob Dobbs: I see it as just a comment in Culture Is Our Business.
[35:54] Bob Dobbs: It was a comment on an ad.
[35:57] Bob Dobbs: I don't think it was in quotes.
[36:01] Bob Dobbs: But anyways,
[36:01] Bob Dobbs: it's a good one.
[36:03] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[36:03] Bob Dobbs: you're right.
[36:03] Bob Dobbs: It might have been the cartoon.
[36:05] Bob Dobbs: For some reason in my head,
[36:06] Bob Dobbs: it doesn't.
[36:07] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[36:07] Bob Dobbs: he could do that.
[36:08] Bob Dobbs: He could take a cartoon and then put the line somewhere else and not indicate it was a cartoon.
[36:14] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[36:14] Cameron McEwen: absolutely.
[36:15] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[36:15] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.
[36:16] Cameron McEwen: He didn't care about that too much.
[36:17] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[36:18] Bob Dobbs: He would quote from Finnegan's Wake and not acknowledge sometimes.
[36:24] Cameron McEwen: And very seldom did McLuhan get his quotes correct.
[36:29] Bob Dobbs: That's right.
[36:30] Cameron McEwen: He didn't really care about that at all.
[36:34] Bob Dobbs: Did you ever find,
[36:36] Bob Dobbs: there's no police like Holmes?
[36:41] Cameron McEwen: In Finnegan's Wake?
[36:42] Bob Dobbs: In anywhere,
[36:43] Bob Dobbs: anything Joyce wrote.
[36:45] Cameron McEwen: No.
[36:46] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[36:46] Bob Dobbs: nobody found it.
[36:47] Bob Dobbs: Barry Nevin was always looking for it.
[36:49] Bob Dobbs: Occasionally check,
[36:50] Bob Dobbs: check in,
[36:50] Bob Dobbs: did you find it yet,
[36:51] Bob Dobbs: Bob?
[36:52] Bob Dobbs: No.
[36:52] Bob Dobbs: And,
[36:53] Bob Dobbs: and you would look for lines in Finnegan's Wake that,
[36:58] Bob Dobbs: that weren't written literally that,
[37:00] Bob Dobbs: but somehow said that.
[37:02] Cameron McEwen: Exactly.
[37:03] Bob Dobbs: But I never found one.
[37:04] Bob Dobbs: So it's very interesting.
[37:07] Bob Dobbs: Is it some joke that Frank Budgen did,
[37:10] Bob Dobbs: the longtime friend of Joyce that's in some obscure biography or something?
[37:16] Bob Dobbs: It's typical.
[37:16] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan would hide something like that.
[37:19] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[37:20] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[37:20] Cameron McEwen: I'll have to take a look.
[37:22] Cameron McEwen: That's an interesting question,
[37:24] Cameron McEwen: actually.
[37:25] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[37:25] Bob Dobbs: if you went to a Joyce scholar,
[37:27] Bob Dobbs: not a McLuhan.
[37:29] Bob Dobbs: See if what they can,
[37:30] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[37:31] Bob Dobbs: Joyce's professor,
[37:31] Bob Dobbs: someone knows Joyce's works well,
[37:33] Bob Dobbs: they might know exactly where it is.
[37:35] Bob Dobbs: It could be in a biography of one of Joyce's friends.
[37:42] Cameron McEwen: Sure.
[37:44] Bob Dobbs: So we are still looking for that one.
[37:47] Bob Dobbs: There's no police like Holmes.
[37:50] Bob Dobbs: No place like Holmes.
[37:52] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[37:53] Bob Dobbs: And I don't even know if I got it right,
[37:54] Bob Dobbs: but it's something like that.
[37:57] Cameron McEwen: No,
[37:57] Cameron McEwen: you did.
[37:58] Cameron McEwen: You got it right.
[37:59] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[38:00] Bob Dobbs: All right.
[38:00] Bob Dobbs: So that was good.
[38:02] Bob Dobbs: Now let's go to page 40 or approximately what you're...
[38:07] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[38:08] Cameron McEwen: just before we do that,
[38:10] Cameron McEwen: let's just go to the bottom of page one.
[38:13] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[38:15] Cameron McEwen: You've got these two quotations that sort of illustrate each other.
[38:23] Cameron McEwen: And then at the bottom,
[38:24] Cameron McEwen: you've got a remark.
[38:26] Cameron McEwen: And you say that...
[38:30] Cameron McEwen: you're making a
[38:31] Cameron McEwen: Marshall McLuhan kid of quotations nobody knows about.
[38:36] Cameron McEwen: And you say that he said to get out of this cul-de-sac of 50s stuff that they repeat ad nauseum,
[38:44] Cameron McEwen: the medium is the message,
[38:45] Cameron McEwen: global village,
[38:46] Cameron McEwen: etc.
[38:48] Cameron McEwen: And that gets to what you were saying about the webinar,
[38:54] Cameron McEwen: that these phrases...
[38:58] Cameron McEwen: were trotted out as sort of well-known way markers that one didn't have to think about and could just use as coin of the realm or something.
[39:13] Cameron McEwen: But
[39:14] Cameron McEwen: I would say there's two interesting things in what you're saying here.
[39:17] Cameron McEwen: One is the cul-de-sac.
[39:21] Cameron McEwen: One of the ways in which I think
[39:25] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan is very,
[39:26] Cameron McEwen: very interesting
[39:28] Cameron McEwen: is that he takes seriously something that most people want to avoid,
[39:34] Cameron McEwen: and that is the cul-de-sac of thought.
[39:37] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[39:38] Cameron McEwen: Right?
[39:39] Cameron McEwen: If somebody brings up the question of roles and masks in life,
[39:47] Cameron McEwen: for example,
[39:51] Cameron McEwen: most people don't like to take this very far because the person asks,
[39:57] Cameron McEwen: the question of course is also playing a role in wearing a mask
[40:04] Cameron McEwen: And there's a threat of sort of infinite regress here,
[40:11] Cameron McEwen: which threatens to just tear open the ground beneath people's feet.
[40:20] Cameron McEwen: And as we were saying with how the most important thing about a role is to appear self-convinced.
[40:33] Cameron McEwen: If you once admitted that roles have no end as you question after their ground,
[40:41] Cameron McEwen: you can't be self-convinced anymore.
[40:44] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[40:44] Cameron McEwen: So,
[40:44] Cameron McEwen: yes,
[40:45] Cameron McEwen: but McLuhan didn't mind going into that vacuum.
[40:51] Cameron McEwen: He didn't mind that sort of anxiety.
[40:57] Cameron McEwen: So one of the reasons that people...
[41:00] Cameron McEwen: turn out to be terrible readers of McLuhan is that it's forbidden for them to go into the no man's land,
[41:12] Cameron McEwen: as he called it,
[41:14] Cameron McEwen: where his thought is located,
[41:19] Cameron McEwen: right?
[41:20] Cameron McEwen: They need to stay away from that cul-de-sac.
[41:23] Bob Dobbs: Right,
[41:23] Bob Dobbs: exploring ignorance for discovery.
[41:27] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely,
[41:28] Cameron McEwen: absolutely.
[41:29] Cameron McEwen: So.
[41:29] Cameron McEwen: Ignorance in that term,
[41:31] Cameron McEwen: exploring ignorance,
[41:33] Cameron McEwen: is not something that,
[41:37] Cameron McEwen: oh,
[41:37] Cameron McEwen: I missed that quotation or something like that.
[41:41] Cameron McEwen: It's a hole,
[41:43] Cameron McEwen: that black hole that is underneath all of our identities.
[41:48] Cameron McEwen: And so exploring that ignorance is not something that you do by publishing three consecutive.
[41:57] Cameron McEwen: articles on a theme in a certain journal,
[42:01] Cameron McEwen: it has to do with taking the vacuity of human identity very,
[42:08] Cameron McEwen: very seriously and asking what that has to do with genuine thinking.
[42:14] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[42:15] Bob Dobbs: it's a spiritual act,
[42:16] Bob Dobbs: what you're describing.
[42:17] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.
[42:18] Cameron McEwen: Right,
[42:19] Cameron McEwen: right.
[42:20] Cameron McEwen: And so therefore,
[42:24] Cameron McEwen: I myself don't believe that there's anything wrong with
[42:28] Cameron McEwen: the topic of the medium is the message.
[42:33] Cameron McEwen: It's just that used in a certain way,
[42:37] Cameron McEwen: it just covers over what it's trying to think about.
[42:41] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[42:43] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[42:43] Bob Dobbs: and I was going to say something.
[42:47] Bob Dobbs: Exploring Eden through discovery is a spiritual act.
[42:54] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[42:56] Bob Dobbs: People are famous for specialist activities,
[43:00] Bob Dobbs: a great soldier,
[43:02] Bob Dobbs: a great politician,
[43:03] Bob Dobbs: a great lover,
[43:04] Bob Dobbs: a great athlete.
[43:07] Bob Dobbs: And they may have said a few things like
[43:09] Bob Dobbs: Yogi Berra,
[43:10] Bob Dobbs: Yogi Berra would say silly things,
[43:13] Bob Dobbs: or Babe Ruth said something.
[43:15] Bob Dobbs: But nobody was known for a quotation,
[43:18] Bob Dobbs: I don't think,
[43:19] Bob Dobbs: for an aphorism.
[43:22] Bob Dobbs: Wordsworth was not known as...
[43:24] Bob Dobbs: What did he do?
[43:25] Bob Dobbs: Child as father to the man?
[43:27] Bob Dobbs: I think that was Wordsworth,
[43:28] Bob Dobbs: or maybe Tennyson.
[43:30] Bob Dobbs: But he made poetry.
[43:33] Bob Dobbs: But in our speeded-up information society,
[43:36] Bob Dobbs: the best you could be known for,
[43:38] Bob Dobbs: and he was the first to do it,
[43:39] Bob Dobbs: that's why he became famous,
[43:40] Bob Dobbs: was to put out an aphorism.
[43:43] Bob Dobbs: That's all society wanted.
[43:46] Bob Dobbs: Give us something to guide us so that we can continue phatically communicating and use your sentence to meet him as a message.
[43:54] Bob Dobbs: Because you remember on the album,
[43:56] Bob Dobbs: The Mediumism Passage,
[43:58] Bob Dobbs: someone asked McLuhan about the phrase,
[44:00] Bob Dobbs: what is it?
[44:01] Bob Dobbs: He said,
[44:01] Bob Dobbs: it's kind of like an aside.
[44:04] Bob Dobbs: Think of that.
[44:05] Bob Dobbs: It's an aside.
[44:06] Bob Dobbs: Somebody's watching something,
[44:08] Bob Dobbs: a parade or something with another person,
[44:11] Bob Dobbs: and something happens in the parade.
[44:13] Bob Dobbs: And so the guy says,
[44:14] Bob Dobbs: or the woman says,
[44:15] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[44:15] Bob Dobbs: hey,
[44:16] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[44:16] Bob Dobbs: just shows you that's the way those people are.
[44:19] Bob Dobbs: It's an aside for freak's sake.
[44:22] Bob Dobbs: The Mediumism Passage.
[44:25] Cameron McEwen: He wrote an essay about this in the
[44:27] Cameron McEwen: 40s called The Case of the Missing Anecdote.
[44:31] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[44:31] Bob Dobbs: yeah.
[44:32] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[44:33] Cameron McEwen: It wasn't published.
[44:37] Cameron McEwen: I read it years ago.
[44:39] Cameron McEwen: And it has to do with how what you're calling an aside gets to the heart of communication.
[44:52] Cameron McEwen: This is before he was really talking about communication,
[44:56] Cameron McEwen: but the anecdote or the quotation or the aside is...
[45:05] Cameron McEwen: a very important aspect of what's going on in society at any given time,
[45:14] Cameron McEwen: right?
[45:14] Cameron McEwen: So it's,
[45:15] Cameron McEwen: as you say,
[45:16] Cameron McEwen: it's the phatic communication that's going on that nobody really knows that they're doing.
[45:22] Cameron McEwen: Nobody knows that they're understanding it,
[45:25] Cameron McEwen: but it's happening.
[45:27] Cameron McEwen: And so when he talks about the case of the missing anecdote,
[45:30] Cameron McEwen: what he's saying is that there's no appreciation of that.
[45:35] Cameron McEwen: communication that is funny that there's no appreciation because that's all that's going on.
[45:43] Bob Dobbs: That's right.
[45:44] Bob Dobbs: So he's taking a cliche and making an archetype.
[45:49] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[45:50] Bob Dobbs: I mean,
[45:51] Bob Dobbs: to say he became famous because he had the best aside of his lifetime.
[45:59] Bob Dobbs: That's a good thing to say.
[46:00] Bob Dobbs: New way to talk about McLuhan.
[46:03] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[46:05] Bob Dobbs: It's a confidential remark.
[46:10] Bob Dobbs: It's a knowing among a social bias or about a social bias.
[46:18] Cameron McEwen: I would say expressing a social bias.
[46:21] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[46:21] Bob Dobbs: but you're commenting on that it's there.
[46:24] Bob Dobbs: You're commenting on the ground.
[46:29] Cameron McEwen: Yes,
[46:29] Cameron McEwen: I would say.
[46:31] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[46:31] Bob Dobbs: so that's so much fun.
[46:33] Bob Dobbs: You'd listen to McLuhan,
[46:34] Bob Dobbs: listen to an album,
[46:35] Bob Dobbs: and you conventionally think,
[46:37] Bob Dobbs: okay,
[46:37] Bob Dobbs: he's going to explain everything to me.
[46:39] Bob Dobbs: And then you find out the big phrase,
[46:41] Bob Dobbs: the medium is a message,
[46:42] Bob Dobbs: he's just an aside,
[46:43] Bob Dobbs: just something tossed off.
[46:46] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[46:47] Cameron McEwen: And that's because in figure and ground or cliche and archetype,
[46:53] Cameron McEwen: these can always flip.
[46:55] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[46:56] Cameron McEwen: Right?
[46:56] Cameron McEwen: So it can be an aside,
[46:58] Cameron McEwen: but it can be very deep.
[47:00] Cameron McEwen: It can be very deep.
[47:02] Cameron McEwen: but it can be meaningless,
[47:04] Cameron McEwen: right?
[47:04] Cameron McEwen: And this dynamic,
[47:06] Cameron McEwen: I believe,
[47:07] Cameron McEwen: is what
[47:09] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was trying to get at.
[47:11] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[47:12] Bob Dobbs: it was the cliche acts of society,
[47:15] Bob Dobbs: of communication.
[47:16] Bob Dobbs: And he wanted to make it noticeable,
[47:18] Bob Dobbs: which turns it into archetype.
[47:22] Bob Dobbs: So that's never talked about.
[47:25] Bob Dobbs: The medium is a message.
[47:26] Bob Dobbs: It's not an aphorism.
[47:27] Bob Dobbs: It's an aside.
[47:31] Bob Dobbs: Anyways,
[47:32] Bob Dobbs: this is the first time I ever got to discuss this,
[47:34] Bob Dobbs: other than maybe once or twice on the radio.
[47:37] Bob Dobbs: But you're the first McLuhan scholar to discuss this with me.
[47:43] Bob Dobbs: You did a fine job of understanding it.
[47:49] Cameron McEwen: That actually leads into the page 40 stuff.
[47:54] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[47:55] Cameron McEwen: If we can go to your page 40,
[47:59] Cameron McEwen: which is...
[48:00] Cameron McEwen: 41,
[48:00] Cameron McEwen: 42 of the PDF.
[48:05] Cameron McEwen: And at the start of it,
[48:08] Cameron McEwen: you have this
[48:11] Cameron McEwen: Father Patrick Payton quotation from
[48:14] Cameron McEwen: Family Theater in 1971.
[48:18] Cameron McEwen: And it's a quotation that you have at least twice or maybe three times in the course of your book.
[48:27] Bob Dobbs: It's the quotation,
[48:29] Bob Dobbs: Cameron.
[48:30] Bob Dobbs: They got me to today.
[48:32] Bob Dobbs: That was,
[48:33] Bob Dobbs: I don't know when I first discovered it,
[48:37] Bob Dobbs: but,
[48:37] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[48:37] Bob Dobbs: it was recently because I think the interview was only made available recently in this decade,
[48:42] Bob Dobbs: say,
[48:42] Bob Dobbs: the past decade.
[48:44] Bob Dobbs: But that was the key.
[48:45] Bob Dobbs: That was the one.
[48:45] Bob Dobbs: Look at him.
[48:46] Bob Dobbs: You never heard that before.
[48:48] Bob Dobbs: I'm not sure what's the difference anymore.
[48:51] Bob Dobbs: That's incredible.
[48:52] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[48:53] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[48:53] Cameron McEwen: But what I want to point out,
[48:54] Cameron McEwen: Bob,
[48:55] Cameron McEwen: is that the what's.
[48:58] Cameron McEwen: become available after this is the very long,
[49:03] Cameron McEwen: very detailed correspondence that McLuhan had with different people in the
[49:12] Cameron McEwen: NAEB project,
[49:15] Cameron McEwen: the National Association of Educational Broadcasters.
[49:18] Cameron McEwen: So in 1959,
[49:23] Cameron McEwen: I believe it is,
[49:24] Cameron McEwen: I have this all set out in the post.
[49:27] Cameron McEwen: in the blog,
[49:28] Cameron McEwen: in various posts,
[49:29] Cameron McEwen: but in 1959,
[49:31] Cameron McEwen: I believe he writes to Harry Skornia,
[49:34] Cameron McEwen: and he says something like,
[49:37] Cameron McEwen: remember,
[49:38] Cameron McEwen: this is one year,
[49:39] Cameron McEwen: 59 is one year after he began to talk about the medium as the message.
[49:46] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[49:47] Bob Dobbs: he says he said it in 57,
[49:49] Bob Dobbs: other times he says it in 58.
[49:51] Bob Dobbs: I don't know if that ever got resolved.
[49:54] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[49:55] Cameron McEwen: I resolve it at the blog.
[49:57] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[49:57] Bob Dobbs: okay.
[49:59] Cameron McEwen: I can't remember how
[50:01] Cameron McEwen: I resolve it between 57 and 58.
[50:04] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[50:04] Bob Dobbs: do you find the actual broadcasting conference he went to?
[50:08] Cameron McEwen: Yes.
[50:09] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[50:09] Cameron McEwen: It was actually published.
[50:11] Cameron McEwen: It was actually published.
[50:12] Bob Dobbs: OK.
[50:12] Cameron McEwen: But it was it was published in a very obscure,
[50:19] Cameron McEwen: hardly ever obtainable source.
[50:22] Cameron McEwen: But that was in May.
[50:25] Cameron McEwen: I believe it was
[50:28] Cameron McEwen: May of 1958 at a radio conference at UBC.
[50:33] Cameron McEwen: And then he later that.
[50:37] Cameron McEwen: same month,
[50:39] Cameron McEwen: he went to an NAEB-sponsored conference in Washington,
[50:45] Cameron McEwen: D.C.
[50:46] Cameron McEwen: that was co-sponsored by the Office of Education within the Department of Health,
[50:52] Cameron McEwen: Education,
[50:52] Cameron McEwen: and Welfare.
[50:54] Bob Dobbs: Was it the Office of National Broadcasters?
[50:58] Cameron McEwen: The National Association of
[51:01] Cameron McEwen: Educational Broadcasters.
[51:02] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[51:03] Cameron McEwen: That's NAEB.
[51:04] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[51:05] Cameron McEwen: Right?
[51:06] Cameron McEwen: So when...
[51:07] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan did what he called
[51:10] Cameron McEwen: Understanding Media in 1960,
[51:13] Cameron McEwen: which was the publication of his
[51:16] Cameron McEwen: Project 69.
[51:21] Cameron McEwen: That was financed by the United States Office of Education through the
[51:28] Cameron McEwen: NAEB.
[51:29] Cameron McEwen: Yes. And that was what then led on to...
[51:35] Cameron McEwen: Understanding Media in 1964,
[51:38] Cameron McEwen: but in the course of developing his thoughts with the NAEB from 1958 on,
[51:49] Cameron McEwen: he was constantly working on Gutenberg Galaxy at the same time.
[51:56] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[51:56] Cameron McEwen: And in fact,
[51:57] Cameron McEwen: he proposed that Gutenberg Galaxy be used as a kind of preface.
[52:07] Cameron McEwen: to Project 69.
[52:08] Cameron McEwen: And so,
[52:09] Cameron McEwen: as I show at the blog,
[52:11] Cameron McEwen: he frequently talked about progress on Gutenberg Galaxy in the context of Project 69.
[52:20] Cameron McEwen: So,
[52:20] Cameron McEwen: it's interesting that Gutenberg Galaxy and Understanding Media were sort of mixed up together,
[52:27] Cameron McEwen: starting probably in 1950.
[52:31] Cameron McEwen: nine,
[52:31] Cameron McEwen: if not later part of 58,
[52:34] Cameron McEwen: and then developed in tandem over the next six years.
[52:39] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[52:39] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[52:39] Bob Dobbs: let me add to that.
[52:41] Bob Dobbs: What's interesting is that his main buddy,
[52:43] Bob Dobbs: he always had a main buddy in these projects,
[52:45] Bob Dobbs: was Harry Skornia.
[52:47] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[52:48] Bob Dobbs: He's really important for getting connections and whatever for McLuhan.
[52:52] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[52:52] Cameron McEwen: hugely important.
[52:54] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[52:56] Cameron McEwen: He was a perfect sounding board.
[52:59] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[53:00] Cameron McEwen: He was able to lead McLuhan on in a way that McLuhan deeply appreciated.
[53:07] Cameron McEwen: Most people have never seen.