[00:02] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[00:03] Bob Dobbs: Bob and Cameron are back with session number 18,
[00:07] Bob Dobbs: and we're going to pick up exactly where we ended off.
[00:12] Bob Dobbs: The cul-de-sac that
[00:14] Bob Dobbs: Cameron would get himself into if he actually was invited by the White House to come in and implement somehow his program,
[00:23] Bob Dobbs: or explain to them his program and see if they'd bite.
[00:28] Bob Dobbs: Is that enough introduction?
[00:31] Cameron McEwen: Sure,
[00:31] Cameron McEwen: sure.
[00:32] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[00:32] Bob Dobbs: so
[00:33] Bob Dobbs: I go to Citadel,
[00:36] Bob Dobbs: in Cameron's blog,
[00:37] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan's New Sciences,
[00:39] Bob Dobbs: a topic called Citadel of Inclusive Awareness.
[00:47] Bob Dobbs: Cameron starts off with a quote in a letter from McLuhan to Jacqueline Tewitt,
[00:54] Bob Dobbs: we live in a global village and the job is to create a global city.
[00:58] Bob Dobbs: That's 1960,
[00:59] Bob Dobbs: December 23rd,
[01:01] Bob Dobbs: I think.
[01:02] Bob Dobbs: It starts off,
[01:02] Bob Dobbs: Bob Dobbs has emphasized the importance in McLuhan's work of,
[01:06] Bob Dobbs: quote,
[01:06] Bob Dobbs: the citadel of individual consciousness,
[01:09] Bob Dobbs: footnote two.
[01:10] Bob Dobbs: Indeed,
[01:11] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan himself marked this importance by repeating in the 1969 counterblast the same phrase from 13 years earlier in the 1956 article,
[01:20] Bob Dobbs: Educational Effects of Mass Media of Communication and Ascent.
[01:24] Bob Dobbs: And where is the,
[01:29] Bob Dobbs: this is what is said.
[01:34] Bob Dobbs: I'll give a few lines before we get into the meat of this quote from 1956.
[01:40] Bob Dobbs: We must substitute an interest in the media for the previous interest in subjects.
[01:45] Bob Dobbs: This is the logical answer to the fact that the media have substituted themselves for the older world.
[01:51] Bob Dobbs: Even if we should wish to recover that older world,
[01:53] Bob Dobbs: we can do so only by an intensive study of the ways in which the media have swallowed it.
[01:58] Bob Dobbs: But no matter how many walls have fallen,
[02:01] Bob Dobbs: So that's a really important quote that I just read from 1956,
[02:13] Bob Dobbs: and then he repeats it
[02:16] Bob Dobbs: 13 years later.
[02:18] Bob Dobbs: So Cameron says,
[02:20] Bob Dobbs: indeed,
[02:20] Bob Dobbs: this is an important theme that Dobbs mentions in his essay.
[02:26] Bob Dobbs: And then Cameron says,
[02:28] Bob Dobbs: What may be the deepest questions,
[02:31] Bob Dobbs: let's see,
[02:32] Bob Dobbs: no,
[02:32] Bob Dobbs: that's not a question.
[02:33] Bob Dobbs: What may be the deepest questions probed by McLuhan are?
[02:38] Bob Dobbs: Who,
[02:38] Bob Dobbs: when,
[02:38] Bob Dobbs: and where is this citadel?
[02:41] Bob Dobbs: What does it do?
[02:42] Bob Dobbs: How does it go wrong?
[02:44] Bob Dobbs: How might its function as a kind of gyroscope be put right?
[02:49] Bob Dobbs: And then I'll just add a little bit.
[02:52] Bob Dobbs: So that's your questions,
[02:55] Bob Dobbs: important questions,
[02:56] Bob Dobbs: and then you say...
[02:56] Bob Dobbs: citadel derives from Latin civis,
[02:59] Bob Dobbs: which means city,
[03:00] Bob Dobbs: and McLuhan explicitly drew on this etymology in the passages below,
[03:05] Bob Dobbs: culminating in the idea of the citadel slash city as the central nervous system,
[03:10] Bob Dobbs: als and in brackets,
[03:12] Bob Dobbs: aka,
[03:13] Bob Dobbs: as we might say today,
[03:14] Bob Dobbs: the operating system.
[03:17] Bob Dobbs: In a letter to Jackie Terwitt in 1960,
[03:20] Bob Dobbs: he set out a notion of the city as the social census communis,
[03:24] Bob Dobbs: against which his Citadel text.
[03:26] Bob Dobbs: should be read is Citadel text.
[03:29] Bob Dobbs: And so we go back to the key point.
[03:31] Bob Dobbs: We live in a global village,
[03:32] Bob Dobbs: and the job is to create a global city.
[03:35] Bob Dobbs: So Cameron has been asked to go to the
[03:37] Bob Dobbs: White House to create a global city.
[03:40] Bob Dobbs: And you started,
[03:43] Bob Dobbs: so you want to talk about the mystery of this Citadel.
[03:48] Cameron McEwen: So we ran out of time last week for me to sort of
[03:55] Cameron McEwen: complicate what would be going on.
[04:00] Cameron McEwen: So one of the great problems that we face in the world today is that the United States and NATO and then
[04:14] Cameron McEwen: Russia and China on their side,
[04:16] Cameron McEwen: that countries are spending trillions,
[04:21] Cameron McEwen: multiple trillions of dollars to endanger the world.
[04:29] Cameron McEwen: The question of peace in the world is hardly posed anymore.
[04:36] Cameron McEwen: Back in the
[04:40] Cameron McEwen: 50s, 60s,
[04:40] Cameron McEwen: and 70s,
[04:41] Cameron McEwen: people were very conscious of nuclear weapons and then the war in Vietnam.
[04:49] Cameron McEwen: And this consciousness of the death...
[04:55] Cameron McEwen: need for peace has been more or less lost.
[05:01] Cameron McEwen: And so one question that might be seen as posed by McLuhan throughout his life is,
[05:12] Cameron McEwen: how do we find a piece of media,
[05:15] Cameron McEwen: P-E-A-C-E?
[05:19] Cameron McEwen: How do we get a piece of media that can be translated into a piece for the world?
[05:29] Cameron McEwen: and
[05:31] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan constantly called his work a strategy for survival.
[05:38] Cameron McEwen: And I believe that he thought that unless we could establish peace for the media,
[05:46] Cameron McEwen: that it was highly questionable whether human civilization,
[05:53] Cameron McEwen: maybe human life or the biosphere could survive.
[05:58] Cameron McEwen: So these are very deep questions.
[06:01] Cameron McEwen: But the great problem is that if you go to the White House,
[06:05] Cameron McEwen: or if you go to a foundation,
[06:07] Cameron McEwen: or if you go to a newspaper,
[06:09] Cameron McEwen: or if you go to universities,
[06:12] Cameron McEwen: the question of establishing a peace can't even be posed.
[06:20] Cameron McEwen: And why can't it be posed?
[06:22] Cameron McEwen: It can't be posed because the extreme danger of the world.
[06:31] Cameron McEwen: is a result of a cul-de-sac into which Western civilization has entered,
[06:42] Cameron McEwen: and which blocks perception of the people and institutions affected
[06:59] Cameron McEwen: by it.
[07:01] Cameron McEwen: What that means is that if you go to the White House and set out a program,
[07:07] Cameron McEwen: there will be absolutely no understanding of it.
[07:11] Cameron McEwen: This is leaving aside the impossibility of ever doing,
[07:14] Cameron McEwen: of ever getting into the White House in the first place.
[07:17] Cameron McEwen: But even if you were able to do it,
[07:20] Cameron McEwen: and it doesn't matter if it's a Republican or a Democrat sitting there,
[07:25] Cameron McEwen: they're not going to be able to understand the question of peace.
[07:32] Cameron McEwen: Because they have solidified their identity and their perception on the basis of nihilism,
[07:44] Cameron McEwen: on the basis of having lost themselves in a cul-de-sac,
[07:51] Cameron McEwen: having lost themselves in the end of the print era.
[08:01] Cameron McEwen: without knowing how to get into the new electronic era.
[08:08] Cameron McEwen: So the very difficult question that we face today is that the only answer to our problems for
[08:22] Cameron McEwen: most people and for all people in power,
[08:27] Cameron McEwen: the question cannot even be posed.
[08:31] Cameron McEwen: They do not have the perception or the possible approach that allows them to understand either the danger or the
[08:46] Cameron McEwen: possible solution to it.
[08:49] Cameron McEwen: And so the greatest danger that we face is that the very people who are formulating and financing thing.
[09:00] Cameron McEwen: The danger have no conception of anything but danger.
[09:12] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[09:14] Bob Dobbs: There is an office in the government there in Washington,
[09:19] Bob Dobbs: Office of Technology Assessment or something,
[09:22] Bob Dobbs: and Hazel Henderson was on that.
[09:24] Bob Dobbs: I knew her.
[09:24] Bob Dobbs: She was a friend of William Irwin Thompson,
[09:26] Bob Dobbs: and she was an economist.
[09:28] Bob Dobbs: She contributed to it,
[09:29] Bob Dobbs: and they claim to be studying the effects of technology.
[09:33] Bob Dobbs: Maybe if you brought in one of them,
[09:37] Bob Dobbs: and they heard you talk to whoever your audience was at the White House,
[09:41] Bob Dobbs: they'd help it be understood.
[09:43] Bob Dobbs: Or would you say,
[09:44] Bob Dobbs: no,
[09:44] Bob Dobbs: what McLuhan's saying is not something that the Office of Technology Assessment would come up to?
[09:50] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[09:51] Cameron McEwen: correct.
[09:51] Cameron McEwen: I would say the latter.
[09:53] Cameron McEwen: And the reason for this is that...
[09:59] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan's idea of communication.
[10:02] Cameron McEwen: which he often said was so rare as to be almost an impossibility.
[10:09] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan's idea of communication requires a kind of somersault from one sense of order into another sense of order.
[10:20] Cameron McEwen: So the sense of order that nearly all people of power exist in.
[10:32] Cameron McEwen: is one that has no bridge to another sense of order.
[10:41] Cameron McEwen: It's gapped from another sense of order.
[10:44] Cameron McEwen: In order to get there,
[10:46] Cameron McEwen: you need to go through a somersault or you need to take flight.
[10:50] Cameron McEwen: You need to leave off one sense of identity and go to another.
[10:56] Cameron McEwen: And what's happened in modern civilization is that we've lost
[11:02] Cameron McEwen: All of our initiation rites that used to take identity from one sphere into another sphere.
[11:11] Cameron McEwen: We've lost what
[11:14] Cameron McEwen: Hegel called the absolute spheres of human life.
[11:20] Cameron McEwen: And those were three,
[11:21] Cameron McEwen: art,
[11:22] Cameron McEwen: religion,
[11:22] Cameron McEwen: and philosophy.
[11:24] Cameron McEwen: And in the modern world,
[11:26] Cameron McEwen: we don't have any of those.
[11:28] Cameron McEwen: They're gone,
[11:30] Cameron McEwen: right?
[11:31] Cameron McEwen: The philosophers are all careerists and religion has dissipated and art has become a kind of laughing stock,
[11:47] Cameron McEwen: something that you pay people to throw out on the screen.
[11:52] Cameron McEwen: It has nothing to do with traditional art.
[11:57] Bob Dobbs: But wait a minute.
[11:59] Cameron McEwen: Go ahead.
[12:01] Bob Dobbs: And so McLuhan said the media environments were the new art forms.
[12:06] Bob Dobbs: So managing them or looking at them as art is what he pointed to.
[12:13] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[12:14] Cameron McEwen: but you see,
[12:16] Cameron McEwen: Bob,
[12:16] Cameron McEwen: what I was talking before about this gap,
[12:21] Cameron McEwen: the whole purpose of people in the cul-de-sac is to keep the gap at a distance.
[12:30] Cameron McEwen: The whole idea of violence being a correlate with a sense of identity,
[12:38] Cameron McEwen: or a sense of loss of identity,
[12:42] Cameron McEwen: is something that
[12:44] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan says over and over and over again.
[12:46] Cameron McEwen: And why?
[12:47] Cameron McEwen: Because the people that are lost in the cul-de-sac of nihilism are deathly afraid of the gap.
[12:56] Cameron McEwen: The gap seems to them to be death.
[13:00] Cameron McEwen: But if you want to manage media,
[13:03] Cameron McEwen: plural,
[13:04] Cameron McEwen: you need to immerse yourself in gaps.
[13:08] Cameron McEwen: So in order to communicate,
[13:11] Cameron McEwen: what you need to do is you need to lead somebody into what they most fear.
[13:19] Cameron McEwen: And that's a very,
[13:20] Cameron McEwen: very difficult problem.
[13:23] Cameron McEwen: But it's a kind of this that problem is a thread on which the future of the planet.
[13:30] Cameron McEwen: now hangs.
[13:32] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[13:33] Bob Dobbs: Is that included in his statements where we must explore ignorance for discovery?
[13:40] Bob Dobbs: Absolutely.
[13:42] Cameron McEwen: By ignorance,
[13:43] Cameron McEwen: he doesn't mean you've forgotten about page 16 on some book.
[13:50] Cameron McEwen: By ignorance,
[13:51] Cameron McEwen: he means what is absolutely ignorant and cannot ever be illuminated,
[13:58] Cameron McEwen: and that is the gap.
[14:01] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[14:02] Cameron McEwen: in a way,
[14:02] Cameron McEwen: Eric,
[14:02] Cameron McEwen: at the end of Laws of Media,
[14:03] Cameron McEwen: where he says that this new medium,
[14:07] Cameron McEwen: new C,
[14:07] Cameron McEwen: can't be charted and it's unchartable,
[14:09] Bob Dobbs: is not the right way to say it.
[14:11] Bob Dobbs: It can be charted if you know how to get in the gap and do something in the gap.
[14:18] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[14:19] Cameron McEwen: But,
[14:19] Cameron McEwen: I mean,
[14:19] Cameron McEwen: there's a sense in which what Eric says there is right.
[14:23] Cameron McEwen: The gap itself can't be charted.
[14:25] Cameron McEwen: But you're also right that the...
[14:29] Cameron McEwen: The media environment can be charted,
[14:35] Cameron McEwen: definitely.
[14:36] Cameron McEwen: In fact,
[14:37] Cameron McEwen: it's McLuhan's whole point that not only can it be charted,
[14:41] Cameron McEwen: but it's actually charted at all times by every human individual.
[14:48] Cameron McEwen: How can that be?
[14:49] Cameron McEwen: It's because all human potential is always present to us at all times.
[14:58] Bob Dobbs: That's right.
[14:59] Cameron McEwen: But we don't know that.
[15:01] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[15:02] Bob Dobbs: In one of your Symbol of Awareness blogs,
[15:04] Bob Dobbs: there's three of them sort of related,
[15:08] Bob Dobbs: you say we don't know how to receive,
[15:12] Bob Dobbs: you italicize receive,
[15:13] Bob Dobbs: receive the transmission or something.
[15:15] Bob Dobbs: You remember that?
[15:16] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[15:17] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[15:17] Cameron McEwen: absolutely.
[15:18] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[15:18] Bob Dobbs: that's what you mean.
[15:19] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely,
[15:20] Cameron McEwen: because reception in McLuhan's sense is the same as communication.
[15:26] Cameron McEwen: So there is communication coming to us.
[15:32] Cameron McEwen: what he calls light through.
[15:36] Cameron McEwen: So the light of possible communication is always coming through to us.
[15:44] Cameron McEwen: But the condition of being in the labyrinth,
[15:46] Cameron McEwen: the condition of being in nihilism,
[15:48] Cameron McEwen: is a rejection of that.
[15:50] Cameron McEwen: Because in order to receive light through,
[15:54] Cameron McEwen: you have to go from the order of light on,
[15:59] Cameron McEwen: which is our illumination.
[16:01] Cameron McEwen: of whatever we're looking at to one of reception of illumination.
[16:09] Cameron McEwen: These two orders are gapped.
[16:13] Cameron McEwen: And in order to get to the order of reception,
[16:17] Cameron McEwen: you need to take flight or you need to take the somersault into a new order.
[16:25] Bob Dobbs: So you have probably said a bit of that before.
[16:30] Bob Dobbs: How do we get to what you said to me about the mystery of what is the Citadel?
[16:38] Bob Dobbs: Is that the question?
[16:39] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[16:40] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[16:40] Cameron McEwen: I mean,
[16:42] Cameron McEwen: I think that is a very important question that
[16:45] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan's work from start to finish raises,
[16:49] Cameron McEwen: and I don't think he ever came to a satisfactory answer,
[16:56] Cameron McEwen: which isn't saying that,
[16:57] Cameron McEwen: you know,
[16:58] Cameron McEwen: his...
[17:00] Cameron McEwen: work was useless.
[17:01] Cameron McEwen: I mean just think about it,
[17:04] Cameron McEwen: somebody identifies elements starting in 1780 and then it takes a hundred and fifty years or 170 years for
[17:19] Cameron McEwen: DNA to be identified,
[17:22] Cameron McEwen: right?
[17:22] Cameron McEwen: So there's nothing about science that says that the most important questions have to be
[17:29] Cameron McEwen: to be identified in the beginning.
[17:31] Cameron McEwen: No,
[17:33] Cameron McEwen: there are important questions that are identified in the beginning,
[17:36] Cameron McEwen: but that opens a pathway which then leads on to other very important questions.
[17:43] Cameron McEwen: So the whole question of the citadel is very important.
[17:49] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan in Take Today is often talking about the nobody and the no man's land,
[17:56] Cameron McEwen: which raises the question of the citadel.
[17:59] Cameron McEwen: But in our case,
[18:02] Cameron McEwen: what we're talking about right now with how do we get out of this cul-de-sac if we can't do it by just going to the
[18:13] Cameron McEwen: White House or if we can't do it by going to a newspaper or a foundation or a university?
[18:19] Cameron McEwen: How is this going to happen?
[18:22] Cameron McEwen: And this is a very,
[18:24] Cameron McEwen: very difficult question.
[18:27] Cameron McEwen: let me let me
[18:29] Cameron McEwen: try to pose the problem this way.
[18:30] Cameron McEwen: Suppose that you're on an island and you have a society there.
[18:37] Cameron McEwen: Everything's been going fine.
[18:39] Cameron McEwen: You have fishermen,
[18:41] Cameron McEwen: you have shepherds,
[18:43] Cameron McEwen: you have everything that you need for your life.
[18:46] Cameron McEwen: But then the weather changes or the way that the fish stocks suddenly aren't coming the way they did.
[18:56] Cameron McEwen: or the sheep and animals get a disease and they all die.
[19:01] Cameron McEwen: So you're on this island and it looks like the society is going to die.
[19:11] Cameron McEwen: So the natural thing to do is to bring together the most intelligent people on the island and say,
[19:22] Cameron McEwen: what are we going to do?
[19:24] Cameron McEwen: Maybe these most important people were,
[19:27] Cameron McEwen: maybe there was a weaver,
[19:29] Cameron McEwen: or maybe there was a shepherd,
[19:30] Cameron McEwen: or maybe there was a fisherman,
[19:32] Cameron McEwen: or maybe there was a woman who did whatever she was doing.
[19:36] Cameron McEwen: So the island would naturally say,
[19:41] Cameron McEwen: we need these people to figure out what the hell we can do.
[19:46] Cameron McEwen: Do we have to leave the island,
[19:48] Cameron McEwen: or can we get new skills,
[19:49] Cameron McEwen: or what can we do to survive?
[19:53] Cameron McEwen: Right?
[19:53] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[19:53] Cameron McEwen: if we look at the planet and we think of it as this island,
[19:58] Cameron McEwen: the idiots
[20:04] Cameron McEwen: that may not survive their idiocy are not bringing the most important people together.
[20:11] Cameron McEwen: In fact,
[20:11] Cameron McEwen: what we do through our foundations,
[20:13] Cameron McEwen: through our universities,
[20:15] Cameron McEwen: through our elections,
[20:16] Cameron McEwen: and so on,
[20:17] Cameron McEwen: is that we elect or fund people not to think of the most important things.
[20:25] Cameron McEwen: It's quite incredible.
[20:27] Cameron McEwen: We take people that are absolute geniuses and we say,
[20:31] Cameron McEwen: Okay,
[20:32] Cameron McEwen: so think about particle physics for a while,
[20:36] Cameron McEwen: or compose musical stuff on a piano,
[20:40] Bob Dobbs: right?
[20:41] Cameron McEwen: Or be the Minister of Foreign Affairs or some damn thing.
[20:45] Bob Dobbs: The MacArthur Fellowships.
[20:47] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[20:48] Cameron McEwen: It's exactly what an island would not do,
[20:52] Cameron McEwen: right?
[20:52] Cameron McEwen: Imagine an island in extreme peril.
[20:55] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[20:55] Cameron McEwen: And they...
[20:56] Cameron McEwen: They say,
[20:57] Cameron McEwen: well,
[20:58] Cameron McEwen: you keep on being a shepherd and you keep on weaving things.
[21:02] Cameron McEwen: You keep on cooking your great banana bread.
[21:05] Cameron McEwen: I mean,
[21:06] Cameron McEwen: it's absolutely nuts.
[21:08] Cameron McEwen: But that's our situation.
[21:10] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[21:10] Bob Dobbs: now wait,
[21:11] Bob Dobbs: let me say something.
[21:12] Bob Dobbs: So that's Congress.
[21:14] Bob Dobbs: That's the politicians.
[21:15] Bob Dobbs: But the Rockefellers and other billionaires,
[21:18] Bob Dobbs: elitists,
[21:19] Bob Dobbs: they recognize that.
[21:20] Bob Dobbs: So they try to bring together the greatest.
[21:22] Bob Dobbs: minds in the Bilderberger conferences,
[21:25] Bob Dobbs: the Trilateral Commission,
[21:27] Bob Dobbs: the
[21:28] Bob Dobbs: Davos thing that they do in January every year or so.
[21:31] Bob Dobbs: That's an attempt to make the smartest people,
[21:36] Bob Dobbs: but I know you would say they got the wrong standards for who the smartest people are there,
[21:41] Bob Dobbs: right?
[21:42] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[21:42] Cameron McEwen: I don't know.
[21:43] Cameron McEwen: I mean,
[21:45] Cameron McEwen: maybe those are the people with the highest IQs,
[21:48] Cameron McEwen: right?
[21:49] Cameron McEwen: Maybe those people are very smart.
[21:51] Cameron McEwen: But the problem is they are all lost in the cul-de-sac of nihilism,
[21:58] Cameron McEwen: and therefore they cannot formulate the proper answer,
[22:04] Cameron McEwen: right?
[22:05] Cameron McEwen: I mean,
[22:06] Cameron McEwen: it's one thing to come together in a Bilderberg conference or in Davos or something like this.
[22:14] Cameron McEwen: It's completely different to say,
[22:17] Cameron McEwen: okay,
[22:19] Cameron McEwen: we...
[22:20] Cameron McEwen: recognize that we're in extreme danger and we need to bring together some sort of a group that is going
[22:35] Cameron McEwen: to be selected not just from,
[22:37] Cameron McEwen: let's say,
[22:38] Cameron McEwen: NATO countries or something like this.
[22:41] Cameron McEwen: We need to bring together a group who are going to formulate the possibility of peace.
[22:50] Cameron McEwen: Because on this planet,
[22:54] Cameron McEwen: the island only has two options.
[22:57] Cameron McEwen: Either it's going to survive or not survive.
[23:00] Cameron McEwen: And the goal of the island has to be,
[23:03] Cameron McEwen: what's the path to survival?
[23:05] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[23:06] Cameron McEwen: on the planet,
[23:07] Cameron McEwen: either peace is a possibility or truth,
[23:12] Cameron McEwen: is what I was talking about last week.
[23:15] Cameron McEwen: Either peace and truth is a possibility or they're not.
[23:19] Cameron McEwen: And if they're not,
[23:21] Cameron McEwen: the world will probably die from that deficiency.
[23:27] Bob Dobbs: That's right.
[23:28] Bob Dobbs: So listen to this.
[23:29] Bob Dobbs: So McLuhan said,
[23:31] Bob Dobbs: if you had a problem in some field,
[23:34] Bob Dobbs: put it on television.
[23:36] Bob Dobbs: This is back in the 60s,
[23:37] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[23:37] Bob Dobbs: with not many networks.
[23:39] Bob Dobbs: And take a couple hours and have the experts who are puzzled lay out the problem.
[23:46] Bob Dobbs: And McLuhan said,
[23:47] Bob Dobbs: probably you'll find something.
[23:48] Bob Dobbs: someone in the audience who just has the peculiar weird consciousness to figure it out,
[23:55] Bob Dobbs: even though he wasn't necessarily trained.
[23:57] Bob Dobbs: Is that what you're thinking we could do?
[23:59] Cameron McEwen: No.
[24:00] Cameron McEwen: The problem is that that would be a very wonderful thing to do.
[24:07] Cameron McEwen: For example,
[24:09] Cameron McEwen: there are shows,
[24:10] Cameron McEwen: I've never seen one,
[24:11] Cameron McEwen: but I know there are shows on television that try to identify the best talent.
[24:18] Cameron McEwen: the greatest voice or whatever.
[24:20] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[24:22] Cameron McEwen: So if it was actually possible to broadcast the problem that we have,
[24:32] Cameron McEwen: the likelihood of us exterminating ourselves and ask people for an answer,
[24:38] Cameron McEwen: that would be wonderful.
[24:40] Cameron McEwen: But of course,
[24:41] Cameron McEwen: because the means of communication.
[24:45] Cameron McEwen: And the people who decide what's going to be on those means and the people that own those means,
[24:51] Cameron McEwen: because they're lost in the cul-de-sac of nihilism,
[24:55] Cameron McEwen: that's not possible.
[24:56] Cameron McEwen: These are not people that recognize the problem.
[25:00] Cameron McEwen: These are people that actually live in the problem.
[25:04] Cameron McEwen: They draw their sustenance and their air from the problem.
[25:10] Cameron McEwen: They cannot perceive of the problem.
[25:15] Cameron McEwen: being solved.
[25:17] Bob Dobbs: So you're talking about they wouldn't give up the two hours for media?
[25:23] Bob Dobbs: Well,
[25:24] Cameron McEwen: of course they wouldn't.
[25:25] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[25:25] Bob Dobbs: but maybe if it got really serious,
[25:27] Bob Dobbs: and they,
[25:29] Bob Dobbs: just like,
[25:29] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[25:29] Bob Dobbs: the corporation now are pretending they're woke,
[25:31] Bob Dobbs: and they're doing ridiculous strategies,
[25:35] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[25:35] Bob Dobbs: and they're more interested in appearing proper in the public perspective than making money,
[25:40] Bob Dobbs: someone said the other day.
[25:42] Bob Dobbs: But the
[25:43] Bob Dobbs: Let's say there was a sense of crisis and the media president said,
[25:47] Bob Dobbs: yeah,
[25:47] Bob Dobbs: we've got to do this.
[25:49] Bob Dobbs: Let's say they could do it.
[25:51] Bob Dobbs: You don't think that would solve it.
[25:53] Bob Dobbs: Do you think we would get some breakthroughs?
[25:56] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[25:56] Cameron McEwen: first off,
[26:00] Cameron McEwen: if something like that were actually broadcast,
[26:03] Cameron McEwen: that itself would be a breakthrough.
[26:06] Cameron McEwen: That itself would amount to an acknowledgment of the problem.
[26:12] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[26:12] Cameron McEwen: Right now,
[26:13] Cameron McEwen: there's no acknowledgement of the problem.
[26:15] Cameron McEwen: All we're doing is spending money to make every problem worse.
[26:20] Bob Dobbs: That's right.
[26:21] Bob Dobbs: So this would be a performance of the question.
[26:25] Bob Dobbs: Correct.
[26:25] Bob Dobbs: The most accurate way to perform the question is an environment.
[26:30] Cameron McEwen: One of the ways to,
[26:31] Cameron McEwen: who knows the most accurate,
[26:33] Cameron McEwen: but just to pose the question of how we are going to survive on this planet.
[26:41] Bob Dobbs: In that way.
[26:44] Bob Dobbs: in that broadcast.
[26:46] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[26:47] Cameron McEwen: that would be tremendous,
[26:48] Cameron McEwen: regardless of the answers,
[26:50] Cameron McEwen: just to get people,
[26:52] Cameron McEwen: just to have the powers that control communication,
[26:57] Cameron McEwen: to be able to conceive that that is really a problem and a great question,
[27:03] Cameron McEwen: that would be something.
[27:05] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[27:05] Bob Dobbs: that would be
[27:06] Bob Dobbs: Finnegans Wake,
[27:07] Bob Dobbs: here comes everybody,
[27:08] Bob Dobbs: and Finnegans Wake has already laid out the results,
[27:11] Bob Dobbs: 60 languages,
[27:13] Bob Dobbs: on each page,
[27:14] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[27:14] Bob Dobbs: 628 pages.
[27:16] Bob Dobbs: But let me see,
[27:17] Bob Dobbs: there was another.
[27:18] Bob Dobbs: So it looks like Finnegan's Wake,
[27:19] Bob Dobbs: the answer might.
[27:22] Bob Dobbs: You know how they did Live Aid and these concerts to raise money for starving nations and things?
[27:28] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[27:28] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[27:29] Bob Dobbs: That,
[27:29] Bob Dobbs: they thought that they were expressing some emotion of multitude,
[27:33] Bob Dobbs: to quote Yeats,
[27:34] Bob Dobbs: the McLuhan-like,
[27:35] Bob Dobbs: that quote.
[27:36] Bob Dobbs: And that everybody would,
[27:37] Bob Dobbs: on a Saturday afternoon,
[27:38] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[27:39] Bob Dobbs: all engaged and watched.
[27:40] Bob Dobbs: this.
[27:40] Bob Dobbs: I remember this happening in July,
[27:41] Bob Dobbs: I think,
[27:41] Bob Dobbs: 1985 with that Bob guy.
[27:45] Cameron McEwen: And then it was taken up by Coke ads and stuff.
[27:48] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[27:50] Bob Dobbs: So that's not it.
[27:53] Bob Dobbs: What you do is you don't come and bring stars on and play music to soothe their sentiments.
[27:58] Bob Dobbs: You actually create a global consciousness or parliament where everybody's a member.
[28:05] Bob Dobbs: That's real universal consciousness made possible.
[28:09] Bob Dobbs: Or made manifest.
[28:12] Bob Dobbs: And then so everybody would be making all kinds of suggestions,
[28:17] Bob Dobbs: but maybe the fact that it could be done,
[28:20] Bob Dobbs: that's like what you're saying,
[28:21] Bob Dobbs: is that's the breakthrough to actually show this situation in that format.
[28:27] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[28:27] Cameron McEwen: And I personally,
[28:29] Cameron McEwen: I don't think that that is even remotely possible.
[28:35] Bob Dobbs: Well,
[28:35] Bob Dobbs: let me,
[28:36] Bob Dobbs: it sounds.
[28:38] Bob Dobbs: Well,
[28:38] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[28:39] Bob Dobbs: many groups get on Zoom and they get maybe,
[28:42] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[28:43] Bob Dobbs: a thousand people listening.
[28:45] Bob Dobbs: It's hard to get everybody,
[28:46] Bob Dobbs: but if you could pretend you're getting everybody and all the media cooperators said,
[28:51] Bob Dobbs: this is what we're going to do,
[28:52] Bob Dobbs: we're going to take,
[28:52] Bob Dobbs: we're going to do this on this date,
[28:55] Bob Dobbs: then everybody talks about it for two or three weeks to find out about it,
[28:59] Bob Dobbs: everybody,
[28:59] Bob Dobbs: a lot of people would look if they had the means,
[29:02] Bob Dobbs: and a lot of people on the planet do.
[29:04] Bob Dobbs: Matter of fact,
[29:04] Bob Dobbs: most of them would be on the phone,
[29:06] Bob Dobbs: right?
[29:07] Bob Dobbs: They'd be watching on their phone,
[29:09] Bob Dobbs: not on TV.
[29:13] Cameron McEwen: So you see the question of dialogue,
[29:21] Cameron McEwen: which
[29:22] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan saw very early and is symbolized by his conversion to Catholicism.
[29:34] Cameron McEwen: The question of dialogue is first and foremost.
[29:36] Cameron McEwen: foremost a dialogue of times.
[29:41] Cameron McEwen: The people that were alive in 1900,
[29:45] Cameron McEwen: or the people that were alive in the Congo in year...
[29:52] Cameron McEwen: 750.
[29:54] Cameron McEwen: We're not less human,
[29:58] Cameron McEwen: we're not less living in some kind of truth than we do today.
[30:04] Cameron McEwen: Everybody lives in a bubble of significance,
[30:08] Cameron McEwen: but the whole point of media ecology,
[30:12] Cameron McEwen: the whole point of understanding media is to understand the plurality of these orders of significance.
[30:22] Cameron McEwen: So the great problem that we've come to in the modern world is everybody's got their nose in their phones,
[30:30] Cameron McEwen: everybody is thinking that they might be woke and all this sort of stuff,
[30:34] Cameron McEwen: but they have no conception of the plurality of orders of significance,
[30:44] Cameron McEwen: the plurality of media.
[30:46] Bob Dobbs: And do you mean the plurality of subjectivities?
[30:50] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[30:51] Cameron McEwen: that's correlative.
[30:51] Cameron McEwen: with them sure yeah you media media subjectivities perception understanding all of these things are always corollary so you're saying that people don't perceive how much is going on well
[31:09] Cameron McEwen: remember that what is going on is everything yeah so so but amongst amongst the
[31:21] Cameron McEwen: things that are going on in the big now is the parents of the people with their nose in the phone that the people with the nose in the phone think are idiots.
[31:39] Cameron McEwen: Wait,
[31:39] Bob Dobbs: wait,
[31:40] Bob Dobbs: who thinks who's idiots?
[31:41] Bob Dobbs: They both think each other are idiots.
[31:44] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[31:45] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[31:45] Cameron McEwen: that's right.
[31:46] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[31:46] Cameron McEwen: So what does that mean?
[31:49] Cameron McEwen: It means that they have,
[31:51] Cameron McEwen: and that's
[31:51] Cameron McEwen: just modes of significance that are very close to us.
[31:56] Cameron McEwen: Think of all the millions of modes of significance that are out there that also need to be thought of,
[32:07] Cameron McEwen: not in individual particularity,
[32:09] Cameron McEwen: but they need to be all potentially valorized.
[32:15] Cameron McEwen: So one of the things that's going on in Finnegan's Wake with its allusions and suggestions and stuff
[32:21] Cameron McEwen: is that everything can be extended.
[32:27] Cameron McEwen: Joyce could not personally extend his book into the whole universe.
[32:33] Cameron McEwen: What he could do is suggest that need for extension.
[32:39] Cameron McEwen: So what I'm saying is that the problem with your suggestion about,
[32:44] Cameron McEwen: okay,
[32:45] Cameron McEwen: we're going to put something on
[32:46] Cameron McEwen: TV and people are going to appreciate how...
[32:51] Cameron McEwen: the people in Mongolia,
[32:52] Cameron McEwen: the people in the Caucasus.
[32:57] Bob Dobbs: The people in Halifax.
[32:57] Bob Dobbs: Yes,
[32:58] Cameron McEwen: that's right.
[32:58] Cameron McEwen: All of these people have wonderful art and wonderful dances and stuff like that,
[33:04] Cameron McEwen: and we're all going to be one,
[33:06] Cameron McEwen: right?
[33:07] Cameron McEwen: All going to be one.
[33:08] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[33:10] Cameron McEwen: if we really want to appreciate understanding media in McLuhan's sense,
[33:15] Cameron McEwen: then what we need to understand is not...
[33:20] Cameron McEwen: The world anno
[33:23] Cameron McEwen: 2021, not only that,
[33:26] Cameron McEwen: but the world anno 1980 and 1945 and 1917 and on and on.
[33:35] Cameron McEwen: And for this kind of consciousness requires a couple of things.
[33:41] Cameron McEwen: It requires humility.
[33:43] Cameron McEwen: That is to say,
[33:45] Cameron McEwen: who I think I am is not necessary.
[33:49] Cameron McEwen: who I should be.
[33:50] Cameron McEwen: It's not necessarily the citadel behind identity.
[34:03] Cameron McEwen: So a kind of fluidity of identity is required.
[34:07] Cameron McEwen: And then what is required is an ability to swim in the gap.
[34:17] Cameron McEwen: So you have the
[34:19] Cameron McEwen: Personal humility,
[34:20] Cameron McEwen: you have the ability to swim in the gap,
[34:24] Cameron McEwen: and you have the ability to receive rather than only to broadcast.
[34:35] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[34:36] Cameron McEwen: So these are kind of the preconditions of peace,
[34:43] Cameron McEwen: P-E-A-C-E.
[34:48] Cameron McEwen: Getting from where we are...
[34:52] Cameron McEwen: Locked up in the cul-de-sac,
[34:54] Cameron McEwen: locked up in the little now,
[34:57] Cameron McEwen: locked up in the identity that is so fragile that it can lead to violence.
[35:09] Cameron McEwen: These are tremendously difficult questions that McLuhan was sort of trying to use his sense of smell to get through.
[35:21] Cameron McEwen: through over
[35:23] Cameron McEwen: 40 or 45 years.
[35:28] Bob Dobbs: So you would do that,
[35:32] Bob Dobbs: but more important would be what you describe in the blog titled
[35:40] Bob Dobbs: Medium in American Cosmic Man.
[35:42] Bob Dobbs: And American Cosmic Man was a 1948 book by Wyndham Lewis that McLuhan thought was tremendous.
[35:49] Bob Dobbs: And the word medium is used by its author,
[35:51] Bob Dobbs: Wyndham Lewis,
[35:54] Bob Dobbs: probably before McLuhan knew the word.
[35:59] Cameron McEwen: And you have a global village.
[36:02] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[36:02] Bob Dobbs: and the global village came out of that book,
[36:04] Bob Dobbs: that concept.
[36:05] Bob Dobbs: So you have your blog quotes from the book illustrating the use of the word medium.
[36:11] Bob Dobbs: Then you have this important part in your notes.
[36:14] Bob Dobbs: And you say,
[36:17] Bob Dobbs: it might be said that...
[36:18] Bob Dobbs: Lewis and Ezra Pound defined the cultural,
[36:21] Bob Dobbs: social,
[36:22] Bob Dobbs: political problem that McLuhan felt called upon to solve.
[36:27] Bob Dobbs: And it's something that you're putting on that you're feeling called upon to solve.
[36:34] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[36:34] Bob Dobbs: cultural-social-political,
[36:37] Bob Dobbs: might
[36:38] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan add a dash media to that,
[36:41] Bob Dobbs: do you think?
[36:44] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[36:44] Cameron McEwen: media is more...
[36:48] Cameron McEwen: his proposed answer than the problem.
[36:53] Bob Dobbs: Hold it now.
[36:54] Bob Dobbs: You need to adjust your phone or mic.
[36:58] Bob Dobbs: You're getting distorted.
[37:00] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[37:00] Cameron McEwen: sorry.
[37:01] Cameron McEwen: Okay.
[37:04] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[37:04] Bob Dobbs: speak a little more.
[37:05] Cameron McEwen: The phone's back to its former distance.
[37:10] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[37:10] Bob Dobbs: I think that's all right.
[37:12] Bob Dobbs: Anyways,
[37:13] Bob Dobbs: cultural-social-political-media,
[37:16] Bob Dobbs: you're questioning those...
[37:17] Bob Dobbs: four words for McLuhan?
[37:19] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[37:20] Cameron McEwen: I don't put I wouldn't put media there.
[37:23] Cameron McEwen: Because I
[37:25] Cameron McEwen: I don't think that there is a compared to the cultural,
[37:35] Cameron McEwen: social and political problems that we have.
[37:40] Cameron McEwen: Media contribute those problems to each one of them.
[37:46] Cameron McEwen: But it also is a potential answer in McLuhan's sense.
[37:52] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan used the word media in many different ways,
[37:55] Cameron McEwen: as you bring out in your book,
[37:57] Cameron McEwen: as a matter of fact.
[37:59] Cameron McEwen: The media was as the active forces that structure perception.
[38:12] Cameron McEwen: And in this sense,
[38:14] Cameron McEwen: media are the elements of perception that I think are comparable to the chemical elements.
[38:21] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[38:23] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[38:23] Bob Dobbs: So,
[38:25] Bob Dobbs: okay.
[38:25] Bob Dobbs: Finish your sentence.
[38:26] Bob Dobbs: All right.
[38:26] Bob Dobbs: Lewis and Pound defined this problem that McClunfeld called upon to solve and that Siegfried Gideon gave him in the 40s,
[38:35] Bob Dobbs: the potential solution to it,
[38:37] Bob Dobbs: quote,
[38:38] Bob Dobbs: to diffuse this gigantic human bomb by starting a dialogue.
[38:42] Bob Dobbs: That's McLuhan's sentence.
[38:44] Bob Dobbs: And you say,
[38:45] Bob Dobbs: see Siegfried Gideon's book,
[38:47] Bob Dobbs: A Faculty of Interrelations.
[38:49] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[38:51] Cameron McEwen: it was an article,
[38:51] Cameron McEwen: not a book.
[38:52] Bob Dobbs: An article.
[38:53] Bob Dobbs: And does Gideon say to defuse this gigantic human bomb by starting a dialogue?
[38:58] Bob Dobbs: I know McLuhan says that.
[39:01] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[39:01] Cameron McEwen: so no.
[39:03] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[39:04] Bob Dobbs: that's his translation of Faculty of Interrelations.
[39:09] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[39:09] Cameron McEwen: so Faculty of Interrelations.
[39:11] Cameron McEwen: First.
[39:12] Cameron McEwen: appeared in,
[39:12] Cameron McEwen: I forget,
[39:12] Cameron McEwen: 1942 or 1943 or something.
[39:16] Cameron McEwen: That was before the bombing of Hiroshima.
[39:21] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[39:22] Bob Dobbs: So then you say in the
[39:24] Bob Dobbs: 1940s with McLuhan's proposal to Robert Hutchinson,
[39:27] Bob Dobbs: who was at the University of Chicago,
[39:29] Bob Dobbs: and that was in 1946 or so,
[39:32] Bob Dobbs: and still in the
[39:34] Bob Dobbs: 1950s with the Culture and Communication Seminar that produced the Aspirations magazine.
[39:41] Bob Dobbs: In the 40s and the 50s,
[39:42] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan took,
[39:44] Bob Dobbs: quote,
[39:44] Bob Dobbs: starting a dialogue,
[39:45] Bob Dobbs: unquote,
[39:46] Bob Dobbs: to be the practical problem of bringing together people with expertise and goodwill in a way that would fuse their individual and professional perspectives into an ongoing collective program.
[39:59] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[39:59] Bob Dobbs: do you mean bringing together,
[40:02] Bob Dobbs: did McLuhan mean bringing together people with expertise and goodwill,
[40:04] Bob Dobbs: the best people?
[40:06] Bob Dobbs: as we started off talking about.
[40:08] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[40:08] Cameron McEwen: absolutely,
[40:09] Cameron McEwen: absolutely.
[40:10] Cameron McEwen: So in his letter to
[40:13] Cameron McEwen: Hutchins,
[40:17] Cameron McEwen: I can't remember if it was in the cover letter or actually in the proposal itself,
[40:23] Cameron McEwen: but
[40:24] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan says that you need to have people like
[40:29] Cameron McEwen: Voegelin in political science and
[40:32] Cameron McEwen: Gilson in theology.
[40:35] Cameron McEwen: It would cost a lot of money to hire these people away and to employ them,
[40:42] Cameron McEwen: but that the situation was dire enough that this expenditure would make sense.
[40:49] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[40:51] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[40:51] Bob Dobbs: So now these would be people,
[40:53] Bob Dobbs: in your case,
[40:55] Bob Dobbs: who are you going to pick?
[40:58] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[40:58] Cameron McEwen: but remember,
[40:59] Cameron McEwen: this has to be seen against the problems that we were just discussing.
[41:06] Cameron McEwen: The great problems are that the universities,
[41:14] Cameron McEwen: the foundations,
[41:16] Cameron McEwen: the governments,
[41:17] Cameron McEwen: and the corporations do not recognize the problem.
[41:23] Cameron McEwen: And so they're going about their business just like the shepherd and the weaver and the cook and the fisherman on the island as if in a...
[41:34] Cameron McEwen: situation that is disintegrating,
[41:37] Cameron McEwen: it made sense to be going about their private business like this,
[41:43] Cameron McEwen: right?
[41:43] Cameron McEwen: So the situation that we have in the world is that the problem isn't recognized and cannot be recognized because it's a problem of perception.
[41:58] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[41:58] Cameron McEwen: It's a media problem.
[42:00] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[42:00] Bob Dobbs: And the...
[42:02] Bob Dobbs: The Black Lives Matter,
[42:03] Bob Dobbs: Antifa,
[42:04] Bob Dobbs: they thought it was such a dire situation that they took to waking people up by burning down little towns and things like that.
[42:11] Bob Dobbs: That was a response.
[42:14] Bob Dobbs: Then there was those that thought that was ridiculous.
[42:18] Bob Dobbs: And so they formed another faction.
[42:22] Bob Dobbs: So the mob thing is not useful.
[42:26] Bob Dobbs: So you almost have to get a secret think tank.
[42:32] Bob Dobbs: that governments or other influential people agree to respond to their suggestions?
[42:38] Bob Dobbs: Or would it have to be public?
[42:40] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[42:41] Bob Dobbs: no.
[42:42] Cameron McEwen: That's not going to happen.
[42:43] Cameron McEwen: That's not going to happen.
[42:43] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[42:44] Cameron McEwen: Let's just back up for a minute to the mob scenes.
[42:49] Cameron McEwen: This is a little bit like graffiti.
[42:53] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[42:53] Cameron McEwen: Graffiti,
[42:54] Cameron McEwen: in part,
[42:56] Cameron McEwen: is a way of saying to society,
[43:01] Cameron McEwen: look
[43:01] Cameron McEwen: You give certain people the right to dominate attention,
[43:07] Cameron McEwen: either through advertisements or for
[43:10] Cameron McEwen: TV shows or political action or whatever,
[43:14] Cameron McEwen: and those ways of dominating attention are corrupt and graffiti by illicitly grabbing
[43:29] Cameron McEwen: attention.
[43:31] Cameron McEwen: in one respect at least,
[43:33] Cameron McEwen: is a way of pointing to the corruption of attention getting in other spheres.
[43:42] Cameron McEwen: So when people burn down buildings and stuff,
[43:46] Cameron McEwen: which of course
[43:47] Cameron McEwen: I don't advocate,
[43:49] Cameron McEwen: but it's an unconscious way of showing what the world is coming to.
[43:57] Cameron McEwen: It's a way of saying,
[43:59] Cameron McEwen: The only way out of the cul-de-sac in which we find ourselves is violence.
[44:05] Cameron McEwen: And of course,
[44:05] Cameron McEwen: that's what
[44:06] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan talked about over and over and over again.
[44:10] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[44:12] Bob Dobbs: So he would take these individual and professional perspectives and move it into an ongoing collective program.
[44:20] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[44:21] Bob Dobbs: you were saying last week the collective program would be clinics almost set up.
[44:27] Bob Dobbs: around the continent.
[44:28] Cameron McEwen: That was your word.
[44:29] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[44:30] Cameron McEwen: I never used the word plank.
[44:31] Cameron McEwen: That was your word.
[44:32] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[44:33] Cameron McEwen: But remember that the problem with last week is that we ended up talking about this only at the conclusion of our dialogue,
[44:44] Cameron McEwen: and there wasn't time to complicate it.
[44:48] Cameron McEwen: And so today,
[44:49] Cameron McEwen: I've tried to complicate it somewhat.
[44:53] Bob Dobbs: Complicate it a little more.
[44:56] Cameron McEwen: Okay,
[44:56] Cameron McEwen: well,
[44:57] Cameron McEwen: For example,
[44:57] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan made this proposal to Hutchins in 1947,
[45:03] Cameron McEwen: and people like
[45:05] Cameron McEwen: Neff at the University of Chicago just said,
[45:08] Cameron McEwen: well,
[45:08] Cameron McEwen: that's ridiculous,
[45:09] Cameron McEwen: forget it.
[45:11] Cameron McEwen: And then McLuhan himself tried with his Ford Foundation to have this kind of dialogue at the University of Toronto in the
[45:22] Cameron McEwen: 50s. And he privately...
[45:27] Cameron McEwen: said that it was hopeless,
[45:29] Cameron McEwen: that even the other four editors didn't understand the problem.
[45:35] Cameron McEwen: So we're talking about very close friends,
[45:38] Cameron McEwen: especially
[45:39] Cameron McEwen: Carpenter and
[45:40] Cameron McEwen: Easterbrook and
[45:43] Cameron McEwen: Williams. Williams and Easterbrook had been friends of his for,
[45:52] Cameron McEwen: God,
[45:52] Cameron McEwen: almost 30 years by this time.
[45:54] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[45:55] Cameron McEwen: So,
[45:55] Cameron McEwen: um,
[45:57] Cameron McEwen: And he just,
[45:59] Cameron McEwen: it didn't work.
[46:02] Cameron McEwen: It was an experiment that did not work.
[46:04] Cameron McEwen: And so he had to think,
[46:07] Cameron McEwen: well,
[46:08] Cameron McEwen: how could this possibly be put right?
[46:12] Cameron McEwen: And my suggestion is that what he learned between the time of the end of the seminar,
[46:20] Cameron McEwen: 1955,
[46:22] Cameron McEwen: up to 1960,
[46:26] Cameron McEwen: He came to the idea that the medium is the message,
[46:30] Cameron McEwen: and that the only way out of this cul-de-sac was to define media in such a way as to enable collective research.
[46:42] Cameron McEwen: And collective research is very different from a think tank.
[46:47] Cameron McEwen: In a think tank,
[46:49] Cameron McEwen: you have people with different points of view,
[46:53] Cameron McEwen: and maybe they get together.
[46:55] Cameron McEwen: every once in a while and they talk about commonalities or something.
[47:00] Cameron McEwen: But a collective research,
[47:03] Cameron McEwen: like we see in science,
[47:05] Cameron McEwen: starting,
[47:06] Cameron McEwen: let's say,
[47:06] Cameron McEwen: around 1800,
[47:07] Cameron McEwen: is something completely different.
[47:09] Cameron McEwen: It's something that can be used in commerce.
[47:12] Cameron McEwen: Something can be used in politics.
[47:14] Cameron McEwen: Something can be used everywhere,
[47:17] Cameron McEwen: especially in education.
[47:19] Bob Dobbs: What's that something?
[47:20] Cameron McEwen: Collective research.
[47:25] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[47:26] Cameron McEwen: Right?
[47:26] Cameron McEwen: So let's just say chemistry.
[47:28] Cameron McEwen: Chemistry is basically born in the last decades of the
[47:34] Cameron McEwen: 18th century and the first decades of the
[47:37] Cameron McEwen: 19th century.
[47:38] Cameron McEwen: And here we are a couple hundred years later,
[47:42] Cameron McEwen: and the universities are completely different.
[47:45] Cameron McEwen: Manufacturing is completely different.
[47:48] Cameron McEwen: Making war is completely different.
[47:51] Cameron McEwen: Our idea of the universe is completely different.
[47:54] Cameron McEwen: All because,
[47:55] Cameron McEwen: and the way we do medicine,
[47:57] Cameron McEwen: the way we do everything is completely different because of what happened in those 40 years.
[48:03] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[48:04] Cameron McEwen: Right?
[48:05] Cameron McEwen: Okay.
[48:05] Cameron McEwen: So what McLuhan says is if we want to change things,
[48:10] Cameron McEwen: we're not going to do it through opinions.
[48:12] Cameron McEwen: We're not going to do it through a continuation of where we have been.
[48:18] Cameron McEwen: We have to have a new sense of order.
[48:21] Cameron McEwen: And the new sense of order has to be based.
[48:24] Cameron McEwen: on some common collective perception of the forces at work in human experience.
[48:41] Bob Dobbs: Well,
[48:41] Bob Dobbs: we've had a few Silicon Valley people panic,
[48:44] Bob Dobbs: and they say,
[48:46] Bob Dobbs: run,
[48:47] Bob Dobbs: get away from these computers,
[48:48] Bob Dobbs: stop it.
[48:51] Bob Dobbs: That's not what you mean.
[48:53] Bob Dobbs: You don't think that's effective?
[48:55] Cameron McEwen: No,
[48:55] Cameron McEwen: of course not.
[48:55] Cameron McEwen: Of course not.
[48:57] Cameron McEwen: It's like
[48:59] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan said over and over again,
[49:03] Cameron McEwen: especially starting in the middle
[49:05] Cameron McEwen: 50s, he said,
[49:06] Cameron McEwen: look,
[49:06] Cameron McEwen: the values that we have from
[49:12] Cameron McEwen: Gutenberg, so private individual rights,
[49:18] Cameron McEwen: democracy,
[49:19] Cameron McEwen: civilization as a whole,
[49:22] Cameron McEwen: things will not survive the electronic onslaught unless we achieve a new understanding.
[49:32] Cameron McEwen: And what must a new understanding be?
[49:35] Cameron McEwen: It's an understanding not of medium.
[49:39] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[49:40] Bob Dobbs: you got distorted.
[49:42] Bob Dobbs: I think you said it's a new understanding of what medium means.
[49:46] Bob Dobbs: Is that what you said?
[49:47] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[49:47] Cameron McEwen: no,
[49:48] Cameron McEwen: a new understanding not of medium.
[49:51] Cameron McEwen: singular,
[49:52] Cameron McEwen: but of media,
[49:53] Cameron McEwen: plural.
[49:55] Cameron McEwen: So
[49:57] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan says a medium is only understandable in the spectrum of media.
[50:07] Cameron McEwen: In order to understand the spectrum of media,
[50:12] Cameron McEwen: you understand a medium is.
[50:17] Cameron McEwen: If we've got a spectrum of them,
[50:20] Cameron McEwen: how do we know what they are?
[50:23] Cameron McEwen: And so he said,
[50:24] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan said,
[50:27] Cameron McEwen: End of the
[50:30] Cameron McEwen: 1950s, which was his first version of understanding media.
[50:40] Bob Dobbs: 1960.
[50:42] Cameron McEwen: 1960,
[50:43] Cameron McEwen: that's right.
[50:46] Cameron McEwen: He says that if we are going to combat the corrosive effects of the electronic media,
[50:59] Cameron McEwen: We need to understand what a medium is.
[51:02] Cameron McEwen: How is it affecting us?
[51:05] Cameron McEwen: How do media operate as environments?
[51:11] Cameron McEwen: So what he's saying here is that there is a different kind of dialogue of which humans are capable.
[51:22] Cameron McEwen: There's the dialogue of just talking,
[51:27] Cameron McEwen: or
[51:27] Cameron McEwen: There's a dialogue that has a kind of teleology to it,
[51:31] Cameron McEwen: which is science.
[51:34] Cameron McEwen: And for McLuhan,
[51:38] Cameron McEwen: the answer to how the planet can conceivably survive is to study the humanities
[51:53] Cameron McEwen: and all that the humanities are implicated in,
[51:56] Cameron McEwen: like...
[51:56] Cameron McEwen: sociology and political theory and environmental chemistry.
[52:09] Cameron McEwen: To understand these things,
[52:13] Cameron McEwen: what we need to be able to do is study the humanities according to collective acceptances.
[52:28] Cameron McEwen: And by collective acceptance is what I mean is we need to be able to understand what each other,
[52:38] Cameron McEwen: what we are in common talking about so that we can then critique each other's conversations in the same way as chemistry is based on a common understanding and makes its progress through common critique.
[52:57] Bob Dobbs: Well,
[52:57] Bob Dobbs: there's not going to be much acceptance of the McLuhan terms as a common critique.
[53:04] Bob Dobbs: I don't see how you can begin it without maybe just being a think tank in one place,
[53:12] Bob Dobbs: visiting scholars.
[53:15] Cameron McEwen: Okay,
[53:15] Cameron McEwen: but
[53:17] Cameron McEwen: I think what happens,
[53:19] Cameron McEwen: or what could happen,
[53:22] Cameron McEwen: is that one or two or three or four
[53:26] Cameron McEwen: people begin to do the research according to McLuhan's model.
[53:33] Bob Dobbs: What would that be?
[53:34] Bob Dobbs: Can you state what that research would look like?
[53:38] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[53:38] Cameron McEwen: absolutely.
[53:39] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[53:39] Cameron McEwen: for one thing,
[53:40] Cameron McEwen: that's what my blog attempts to set out.
[53:44] Bob Dobbs: By defining terms.
[53:47] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[53:47] Cameron McEwen: by defining terms,
[53:49] Cameron McEwen: but first of all,
[53:50] Cameron McEwen: by showing how thinking operates.
[53:54] Cameron McEwen: Earlier we were talking about the gap.
[53:56] Cameron McEwen: and the humility that's necessary and the ability to receive.
[54:02] Cameron McEwen: And I attempt to show in the blog how that works.
[54:07] Bob Dobbs: So what was that part?
[54:09] Bob Dobbs: You show how the something,
[54:11] Bob Dobbs: say those words again.
[54:13] Cameron McEwen: How receptivity,
[54:15] Cameron McEwen: how humility,
[54:17] Cameron McEwen: how acceptance works.
[54:25] Cameron McEwen: How does...
[54:25] Cameron McEwen: How do these things operate together to be thinking?
[54:32] Bob Dobbs: Well,
[54:32] Bob Dobbs: it seems that you've read so much McLuhan and you've familiarized yourself with it that you have come to a point where this is really significant.
[54:43] Bob Dobbs: And then you might try to convince people it's significant.
[54:48] Bob Dobbs: I don't see how we get people to agree on the term set out in your blog.
[54:57] Bob Dobbs: I don't know why you think that's feasible.
[55:02] Bob Dobbs: You could get a grant from some corporation.
[55:05] Bob Dobbs: They value what you're doing,
[55:06] Bob Dobbs: but you'd be by yourself and you'd start to reach out.
[55:09] Bob Dobbs: But there are a million other think tanks doing that.
[55:12] Cameron McEwen: Correct,
[55:13] Cameron McEwen: correct.
[55:15] Cameron McEwen: Okay,
[55:16] Cameron McEwen: here's a thought.
[55:17] Bob Dobbs: Could there be an unfolding through the media dynamics?
[55:23] Bob Dobbs: that is an ecology that's happening in front of us.
[55:30] Bob Dobbs: You know,
[55:30] Bob Dobbs: the media interactions.
[55:31] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan always said they fed on each other and bounced each other off.
[55:35] Bob Dobbs: Just humans didn't see it that way.
[55:38] Bob Dobbs: But there could be.
[55:39] Bob Dobbs: That would be part of the training of showing the peace that passes all technology,
[55:44] Bob Dobbs: that McLuhan used to say that phrase,
[55:47] Bob Dobbs: that we've arrived at.
[55:48] Bob Dobbs: Because there's a lot of noise,
[55:50] Bob Dobbs: but there's also a lot of silence.
[55:52] Bob Dobbs: A lot of people don't contribute to the noise.
[55:55] Bob Dobbs: They see it as noise and not productive.
[55:58] Bob Dobbs: So that's the silent majority phrase came up in the
[56:02] Bob Dobbs: 70s,
[56:03] Bob Dobbs: 50 years ago.
[56:06] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[56:07] Cameron McEwen: we need to tease apart some of the stuff you're talking about.
[56:10] Cameron McEwen: So first off,
[56:12] Cameron McEwen: when chemistry was first,
[56:19] Cameron McEwen: when it first took off sort of as an independent science,
[56:22] Cameron McEwen: It's not as if chemistry hadn't always been going on.
[56:28] Cameron McEwen: Everything had always been chemical.
[56:31] Cameron McEwen: Everything,
[56:32] Cameron McEwen: the birth of the universe,
[56:36] Cameron McEwen: every bit of cooking that was ever done,
[56:38] Cameron McEwen: every bit of breathing that human beings had ever done was chemical.
[56:44] Cameron McEwen: It's just that what was recognized for the first time is what was going on in that chemistry.
[56:50] Cameron McEwen: And it'll be the same thing with media.
[56:52] Cameron McEwen: Of course,
[56:53] Cameron McEwen: this contest of media that you're talking about is going on out there.
[56:58] Cameron McEwen: It's just that we don't know how to conceptualize it and how to study it.
[57:07] Bob Dobbs: And McLuhan showed how to study it?
[57:09] Cameron McEwen: I think so,
[57:10] Cameron McEwen: but not just McLuhan.
[57:11] Cameron McEwen: I think,
[57:12] Cameron McEwen: don't get the wrong idea.
[57:14] Cameron McEwen: I don't think McLuhan is the one guy that sort of came up with the answer to everything.
[57:20] Cameron McEwen: I think
[57:21] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan is a very interesting figure,
[57:23] Cameron McEwen: especially for a Canadian like myself.
[57:27] Cameron McEwen: But there's all kinds of tremendous minds.
[57:32] Cameron McEwen: I mean,
[57:33] Cameron McEwen: Plato and Aristotle and Hegel and Heidegger.
[57:35] Cameron McEwen: I mean,
[57:37] Cameron McEwen: these are minds that are just tremendous.
[57:42] Cameron McEwen: But the thing is that they have not,
[57:46] Cameron McEwen: maybe they're so complicated.
[57:49] Cameron McEwen: or maybe the languages are so unfamiliar or something,
[57:53] Cameron McEwen: they have not taken off,
[57:57] Cameron McEwen: you could say,
[57:58] Cameron McEwen: into a collective investigation.
[58:03] Cameron McEwen: So my hope is that terms can be distilled out of McLuhan's work that will prove capable of forming the basis of collective investigation.
[58:19] Cameron McEwen: And all that requires is me and one other person.
[58:23] Cameron McEwen: And then those two can communicate with a third and a fourth.
[58:29] Cameron McEwen: And finally,
[58:30] Cameron McEwen: the end result of that is to have a means or a discipline of collective investigation that can conceivably form
[58:45] Cameron McEwen: an answer to the horrendous.
[58:49] Cameron McEwen: problems of the planet.
[58:50] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[58:51] Bob Dobbs: So what he came up with was he knew he kind of cracked the code of experience.
[58:56] Bob Dobbs: So he said,
[58:57] Bob Dobbs: now let's review all the arts and scientists and all the cultural products by looking at certain,
[59:05] Bob Dobbs: whatever the product is,
[59:06] Bob Dobbs: its theory of communication.
[59:08] Bob Dobbs: Remember?
[59:08] Bob Dobbs: That's what he said.
[59:10] Bob Dobbs: Let's review and look at the theory of communication of everybody in history that hasn't been done yet.
[59:16] Bob Dobbs: Is that close to what you mean?
[59:18] Bob Dobbs: We've come to the end.
[59:19] Bob Dobbs: The last guy sort of came up with a pretty good
[59:22] Bob Dobbs: 2020 hindsight in McLuhan's elements,
[59:26] Bob Dobbs: and now he can go back and have a dialogue based on all the greats of that culture's name and look at them through McLuhan's eyes.
[59:36] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[59:38] Cameron McEwen: Now,
[59:40] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan in the
[59:43] Cameron McEwen: 1970s was quite a sick guy.
[59:46] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[59:47] Cameron McEwen: He had serious heart problems in 1970.
[59:54] Cameron McEwen: Throughout the
[59:56] Cameron McEwen: 50s and 60s,
[59:57] Cameron McEwen: he had the problem with a tumor in his brain.
[1:00:02] Cameron McEwen: So by the
[1:00:03] Cameron McEwen: 1970s, he was pretty much running on fumes.
[1:00:08] Cameron McEwen: And he was desperately trying to find a way to formulate a way of going on from his...
[1:00:17] Cameron McEwen: thought.
[1:00:18] Cameron McEwen: And so the idea of theories of communication was one way.
[1:00:24] Cameron McEwen: The laws of media was another way,
[1:00:28] Cameron McEwen: trying to find different collaborators was another way.
[1:00:37] Bob Dobbs: Sidious Classroom,
[1:00:38] Bob Dobbs: would you classify that as another way?
[1:00:41] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:00:42] Cameron McEwen: sort of,
[1:00:43] Cameron McEwen: but to me that's not his best work.
[1:00:53] Cameron McEwen: I don't think he really contributed much to that book myself.
[1:00:59] Bob Dobbs: All right,
[1:00:59] Bob Dobbs: so you ended up with collaborators?
[1:01:03] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[1:01:03] Cameron McEwen: collaborators and long interviews,
[1:01:05] Cameron McEwen: like with
[1:01:06] Cameron McEwen: Nina Sutton.
[1:01:08] Cameron McEwen: Not only Nina Sutton,
[1:01:09] Cameron McEwen: with Louis
[1:01:10] Cameron McEwen: Forrestdale, for example,
[1:01:13] Cameron McEwen: had some very important interviews.
[1:01:16] Cameron McEwen: So all of these things are
[1:01:19] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan being sick,
[1:01:20] Cameron McEwen: attempting to sort of...
[1:01:23] Cameron McEwen: hand over what he was doing to the future.
[1:01:30] Cameron McEwen: Another project
[1:01:31] Bob Dobbs: I've talked to you about,
[1:01:32] Bob Dobbs: I won't go into it,
[1:01:33] Bob Dobbs: but the guy here in Maui,
[1:01:35] Bob Dobbs: Dave
[1:01:37] Bob Dobbs: Greenberg, doing a TV series like Kenneth Clark or something.
[1:01:41] Cameron McEwen: Right,
[1:01:42] Cameron McEwen: right,
[1:01:44] Bob Dobbs: yeah.
[1:01:44] Cameron McEwen: That was the last one.
[1:01:48] Cameron McEwen: And
[1:01:49] Cameron McEwen: I can readily appreciate
[1:01:51] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan's...
[1:01:53] Cameron McEwen: problems in the
[1:01:56] Cameron McEwen: 1970s because I have that kind of problem myself.
[1:02:00] Bob Dobbs: Right now?
[1:02:02] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[1:02:03] Bob Dobbs: Well,
[1:02:03] Bob Dobbs: that's why I'm taking on your work,
[1:02:05] Bob Dobbs: Cameron.
[1:02:06] Bob Dobbs: I'm still vibrant because I got the solution.
[1:02:09] Bob Dobbs: There you go.
[1:02:10] Bob Dobbs: And you ought to take my products too and you'll retrieve your energy.
[1:02:15] Cameron McEwen: Okay,
[1:02:15] Cameron McEwen: good.
[1:02:15] Cameron McEwen: Well.
[1:02:16] Bob Dobbs: No,
[1:02:16] Bob Dobbs: what's interesting is
[1:02:19] Bob Dobbs: I set out to do.
[1:02:21] Bob Dobbs: what you're talking about in the
[1:02:25] Bob Dobbs: 80s on radio,
[1:02:25] Bob Dobbs: because I knew McLuhan,
[1:02:27] Bob Dobbs: I knew enough about McLuhan that he had really come up with something,
[1:02:31] Bob Dobbs: and more people need to know about it.
[1:02:33] Bob Dobbs: So is that the beginning?
[1:02:36] Bob Dobbs: If you were given the funds in this,
[1:02:38] Bob Dobbs: to start to make more people aware of what McLuhan said,
[1:02:42] Bob Dobbs: explained properly or some kind of brilliantly,
[1:02:46] Bob Dobbs: and with a bunch of other people,
[1:02:47] Bob Dobbs: maybe collaborators that attract attention.
[1:02:50] Bob Dobbs: Would that be the beginning point,
[1:02:52] Bob Dobbs: what I did on the radio?
[1:02:54] Cameron McEwen: No,
[1:02:54] Cameron McEwen: because the problem is,
[1:02:59] Cameron McEwen: Bob,
[1:03:00] Cameron McEwen: that the people who are speaking and experiencing at any given time are expressing the laws of media,
[1:03:13] Cameron McEwen: but without understanding the laws of media.
[1:03:16] Cameron McEwen: Then there is the huge multitude out there.
[1:03:20] Cameron McEwen: that are hearing the broadcast.
[1:03:23] Cameron McEwen: And they,
[1:03:24] Cameron McEwen: too,
[1:03:24] Cameron McEwen: are expressing the laws of media as they hear it,
[1:03:29] Cameron McEwen: as they hear the broadcast and talk about the broadcast and try to understand the broadcast.
[1:03:35] Cameron McEwen: They,
[1:03:35] Cameron McEwen: too,
[1:03:36] Cameron McEwen: are living the laws of media,
[1:03:39] Cameron McEwen: but without understanding them.
[1:03:41] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[1:03:42] Cameron McEwen: So there's no amount of talking at the level of...
[1:03:49] Cameron McEwen: merely expressing the laws of media that is ever going to result in anything but confusion.
[1:04:00] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[1:04:01] Cameron McEwen: So the only way forward as far as McLuhan was concerned,
[1:04:08] Cameron McEwen: and I think he was right in this,
[1:04:10] Cameron McEwen: is to understand human expression,
[1:04:14] Cameron McEwen: which includes the way people understand things,
[1:04:18] Cameron McEwen: the way people express.
[1:04:19] Bob Dobbs: things to understand human expression as an effect yeah but that's his idea that requires listening to his explanation and understanding right so the but but you see listening
[1:04:35] Cameron McEwen: and understanding are themselves effects yes the problem is much more difficult than saying well as let's just talk about this or let's reach an understanding or
[1:04:48] Cameron McEwen: Let's have a broadcast to everybody in the world now.
[1:04:53] Cameron McEwen: That's not going to work because all of that is effect.
[1:04:57] Cameron McEwen: We're not getting at the causes or the grounds.
[1:05:00] Bob Dobbs: But you're not saying what you would do to counter the conditioned responses.
[1:05:08] Cameron McEwen: Yes,
[1:05:10] Cameron McEwen: I have tried to describe it,
[1:05:12] Cameron McEwen: and that is that the start must be
[1:05:17] Cameron McEwen: be made in the medium is the message.
[1:05:20] Cameron McEwen: Start must be made in defining.
[1:05:26] Cameron McEwen: the media in such a way that collective investigation of them can begin.
[1:05:34] Cameron McEwen: And remember,
[1:05:35] Cameron McEwen: it's very important in this context to remember that when elements first began to be isolated as elements between 1780 and 1820,
[1:05:50] Cameron McEwen: in that period,
[1:05:51] Cameron McEwen: it's not as if people began to isolate elements.
[1:05:55] Cameron McEwen: and knew everything about them.
[1:05:57] Cameron McEwen: No,
[1:05:58] Cameron McEwen: they started research into elements,
[1:06:02] Cameron McEwen: which still is ongoing today.
[1:06:08] Cameron McEwen: When elements or when the basic principles of a discipline are isolated,
[1:06:15] Cameron McEwen: that's not the end of the research of those principles.
[1:06:20] Cameron McEwen: It's the start.
[1:06:23] Cameron McEwen: So in...
[1:06:23] Cameron McEwen: And talking about the media being defined in such a way to enable collective research,
[1:06:32] Cameron McEwen: that doesn't mean that media haven't definitively been defined.
[1:06:36] Cameron McEwen: It simply means that people have agreed on how to approach investigation in this field.
[1:06:47] Bob Dobbs: So you've defined a lot of defining and presenting of the...
[1:06:53] Bob Dobbs: the laws of McLuhan and the cul-de-sac that he found himself in,
[1:06:58] Bob Dobbs: then his approaches to alleviating it.
[1:07:02] Bob Dobbs: You think your blog has laid that out better than anybody else?
[1:07:07] Bob Dobbs: Well,
[1:07:08] Bob Dobbs: no,
[1:07:09] Cameron McEwen: I don't say that,
[1:07:10] Cameron McEwen: Bob.
[1:07:11] Cameron McEwen: No,
[1:07:11] Cameron McEwen: no,
[1:07:11] Cameron McEwen: no,
[1:07:12] Cameron McEwen: not at all.
[1:07:13] Cameron McEwen: Not at all.
[1:07:13] Cameron McEwen: I mean,
[1:07:14] Cameron McEwen: there are things in Plato,
[1:07:19] Cameron McEwen: there are things in Heraclitus.
[1:07:21] Cameron McEwen: There are things in Aristotle,
[1:07:24] Cameron McEwen: Hegel,
[1:07:25] Cameron McEwen: on and on,
[1:07:26] Cameron McEwen: that are just,
[1:07:28] Cameron McEwen: you know,
[1:07:28] Cameron McEwen: it's like Bach or Mozart or Beethoven in music.
[1:07:33] Cameron McEwen: Those things cannot be improved upon or bettered.
[1:07:38] Cameron McEwen: No way.
[1:07:40] Cameron McEwen: All we can do,
[1:07:42] Cameron McEwen: like Eliot says in the Four Quartets,
[1:07:45] Cameron McEwen: all we can do is take up the problem that's been handed on to us.
[1:07:50] Cameron McEwen: and attempt to bring it forward.
[1:07:53] Cameron McEwen: That's all I'm trying to do in the blog.
[1:07:55] Bob Dobbs: Right,
[1:07:55] Bob Dobbs: and I think a lot of people think they're doing that in their different fields.
[1:08:00] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[1:08:01] Bob Dobbs: Logan tried to define McLuhan.
[1:08:03] Bob Dobbs: Did you read his book?
[1:08:05] Cameron McEwen: No.
[1:08:06] Bob Dobbs: All right,
[1:08:06] Bob Dobbs: you knew not to.
[1:08:09] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:08:10] Bob Dobbs: so you're throwing your effort on the pile,
[1:08:15] Bob Dobbs: but just now it sounds like a new curriculum.
[1:08:19] Bob Dobbs: You do the greats.
[1:08:21] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[1:08:22] Bob Dobbs: LaRouche recommended this too,
[1:08:24] Bob Dobbs: Plato and people through history.
[1:08:27] Bob Dobbs: But we have to include later media,
[1:08:29] Bob Dobbs: not just books,
[1:08:30] Bob Dobbs: right?
[1:08:31] Bob Dobbs: That's music and films.
[1:08:33] Bob Dobbs: So isn't university,
[1:08:35] Bob Dobbs: any major learning institution,
[1:08:38] Bob Dobbs: offering this mediocrely,
[1:08:41] Bob Dobbs: mediocratons or mediocrely,
[1:08:43] Bob Dobbs: how do you say that,
[1:08:46] Bob Dobbs: mediocrely?
[1:08:48] Bob Dobbs: in mediocre ways,
[1:08:50] Bob Dobbs: because universities have film departments and literature,
[1:08:54] Bob Dobbs: philosophy departments.
[1:08:56] Bob Dobbs: What is,
[1:08:57] Bob Dobbs: and I'm just going to,
[1:08:58] Bob Dobbs: I'm not necessarily saying this is what I think you're doing,
[1:09:00] Bob Dobbs: but it's a question people would say,
[1:09:02] Bob Dobbs: are you just offering a new school?
[1:09:05] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[1:09:06] Cameron McEwen: So I don't,
[1:09:07] Cameron McEwen: there's nothing that you can say that I'll take offense at,
[1:09:11] Cameron McEwen: Bob.
[1:09:12] Cameron McEwen: You don't need to,
[1:09:13] Cameron McEwen: you know,
[1:09:15] Cameron McEwen: justify any kind of.
[1:09:17] Cameron McEwen: question.
[1:09:17] Cameron McEwen: Any kind of question is welcome and fine.
[1:09:21] Cameron McEwen: But we need to come back to the start of our conversation today with the cul-de-sac of nihilism.
[1:09:33] Cameron McEwen: Nihilism isn't something that is in a few people's brains.
[1:09:38] Cameron McEwen: Nihilism,
[1:09:40] Cameron McEwen: it's like a gas that has taken over the atmosphere of the world.
[1:09:46] Cameron McEwen: And so most people have never heard of the word nihilism,
[1:09:50] Cameron McEwen: have no idea who said it or anything like that,
[1:09:53] Cameron McEwen: but it's what they breathe,
[1:09:54] Cameron McEwen: it's what they see,
[1:09:57] Cameron McEwen: it's what makes their life.
[1:10:01] Cameron McEwen: And the whole question of the cul-de-sac is,
[1:10:06] Cameron McEwen: given this noxious gas which has taken over the life of the planet,
[1:10:14] Cameron McEwen: how do we get out?
[1:10:16] Cameron McEwen: That's a very difficult problem.
[1:10:20] Cameron McEwen: and one that
[1:10:22] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan tried to address,
[1:10:24] Cameron McEwen: but he wasn't the only one.
[1:10:26] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:10:26] Bob Dobbs: we're unique.
[1:10:28] Bob Dobbs: I'm unique in having pretty good grass from McLuhan and the cul-de-sac,
[1:10:33] Bob Dobbs: but we actually have ingredients that big farmers recommend,
[1:10:37] Bob Dobbs: is realizing we have that's better than them.
[1:10:40] Bob Dobbs: So
[1:10:40] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan didn't have things for body health.
[1:10:43] Bob Dobbs: They might have a chiropractor he recommended or something,
[1:10:46] Bob Dobbs: but they didn't have products that are sold around the world.
[1:10:49] Bob Dobbs: Plus we have...
[1:10:50] Bob Dobbs: A endless electricity device,
[1:10:53] Bob Dobbs: and we're actually talking.
[1:10:54] Bob Dobbs: You know,
[1:10:55] Bob Dobbs: in a way,
[1:10:56] Bob Dobbs: I've been invited into the White House,
[1:10:59] Bob Dobbs: and we are talking to the White House.
[1:11:02] Bob Dobbs: Mainly,
[1:11:03] Bob Dobbs: it's the Department of Homeland Security and what we're offering.
[1:11:07] Bob Dobbs: So there's a whole agenda.
[1:11:09] Bob Dobbs: So I started talking in the
[1:11:12] Bob Dobbs: 80s, and 40 years later,
[1:11:13] Bob Dobbs: got somewheres.
[1:11:14] Bob Dobbs: Not that we're going to solve everything,
[1:11:16] Bob Dobbs: but we really made great progress,
[1:11:18] Bob Dobbs: which largely is secret.
[1:11:20] Bob Dobbs: Even though I get on the radio,
[1:11:22] Bob Dobbs: 12-hour shows,
[1:11:23] Bob Dobbs: and hint at it and talk about it.
[1:11:26] Bob Dobbs: But I want to figure out what I'm not including by talking to you.
[1:11:32] Bob Dobbs: Right?
[1:11:34] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:11:35] Bob Dobbs: Like,
[1:11:35] Bob Dobbs: I might be in the position someday to be able to do all this stuff.
[1:11:38] Bob Dobbs: I don't need the White House situation.
[1:11:41] Bob Dobbs: I'll have millions of dollars,
[1:11:42] Bob Dobbs: billions of dollars,
[1:11:43] Bob Dobbs: and be able to do it.
[1:11:45] Bob Dobbs: I'm still trying to figure out what would we do.
[1:11:48] Bob Dobbs: If you were advising me.
[1:11:52] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:11:54] Cameron McEwen: remember some weeks ago
[1:11:56] Cameron McEwen: I told you I needed to start making diagrams.
[1:12:00] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:12:00] Cameron McEwen: And you put me together with
[1:12:03] Cameron McEwen: Clinton and we've been working on some diagrams.
[1:12:08] Cameron McEwen: And what
[1:12:09] Cameron McEwen: I'm trying to do with Clinton is I'm trying to take sort of the quintessence of the dialogue,
[1:12:17] Cameron McEwen: of the
[1:12:18] Cameron McEwen: blog and put it into diagrams.
[1:12:24] Cameron McEwen: And
[1:12:25] Cameron McEwen: I'm hoping that through the use of diagrams,
[1:12:30] Cameron McEwen: it may be possible to initiate communication in a way that I haven't been able to do through words in all of the posts that I've done.
[1:12:42] Bob Dobbs: Would this be an ideographic language?
[1:12:47] Cameron McEwen: Kind of.
[1:12:49] Cameron McEwen: Really,
[1:12:51] Cameron McEwen: I've talked before in our conversations about the spectrum of figure-ground relations.
[1:13:02] Cameron McEwen: What McLuhan suggests for collective research is that whenever anything is being understood,
[1:13:10] Cameron McEwen: it needs to be understood as the potential.
[1:13:16] Cameron McEwen: to be every position on the figure ground spectrum.
[1:13:22] Cameron McEwen: This can be understood as something like
[1:13:25] Cameron McEwen: Finnegan's Wake,
[1:13:27] Cameron McEwen: where syllables,
[1:13:29] Cameron McEwen: even individual letters,
[1:13:32] Cameron McEwen: need to be understood against a background of possibility.
[1:13:37] Cameron McEwen: But very few people are able to read
[1:13:44] Cameron McEwen: Finnegan's Wake
[1:13:45] Cameron McEwen: in the same way that very few people are able to read
[1:13:49] Cameron McEwen: Heisenberg on the uncertainty principle,
[1:13:53] Cameron McEwen: let's say.
[1:13:55] Cameron McEwen: And so the question is,
[1:13:59] Cameron McEwen: can the whole idea of the range of possibilities be put into another form that is more communicable and can be
[1:14:14] Cameron McEwen: used to actually investigate things.
[1:14:17] Cameron McEwen: And that's what I'm attempting to do with my diagrams.
[1:14:21] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[1:14:21] Bob Dobbs: great.
[1:14:22] Bob Dobbs: And you've already started with Clinton on that?
[1:14:24] Cameron McEwen: Yes.
[1:14:26] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[1:14:27] Bob Dobbs: So then I see you create a language,
[1:14:34] Bob Dobbs: a product that people engage.
[1:14:35] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[1:14:37] Bob Dobbs: I took from McLuhan one angle is that the way the media was unfolding
[1:14:44] Bob Dobbs: the completing of our senses with the different media environments there was a collective unfolding um consciousness that was happening like he ends take today with finningens awake you know a resurrection um there's
[1:14:59] Bob Dobbs: that aspect of and maybe he makes it into religious terms like the second coming or something but the um as so we may have great uh we have such um
[1:15:13] Bob Dobbs: Collective consciousness now,
[1:15:16] Bob Dobbs: even though it's for individuals pinhead consciousness,
[1:15:19] Bob Dobbs: I use that phrase,
[1:15:20] Bob Dobbs: everybody is concerned about
[1:15:23] Bob Dobbs: The president.
[1:15:24] Bob Dobbs: In that way,
[1:15:25] Bob Dobbs: America is the Rome,
[1:15:27] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[1:15:27] Bob Dobbs: and it runs the world.
[1:15:29] Bob Dobbs: And it's got a big problem over there called China,
[1:15:32] Bob Dobbs: supposedly.
[1:15:34] Bob Dobbs: But the way that we are a global campfire,
[1:15:39] Bob Dobbs: or even less,
[1:15:40] Bob Dobbs: remember his definition in the 50s,
[1:15:42] Bob Dobbs: we're subatomic and super civilized.
[1:15:45] Bob Dobbs: So we're super civilized on the TV level,
[1:15:48] Bob Dobbs: but on the chip body or computer level,
[1:15:51] Bob Dobbs: we're subatomic.
[1:15:52] Bob Dobbs: interacting with millions everybody is with whatever they're doing on their their black mirror so how much do you see something happening uh evolving so okay they say it's really dark before the breakthrough so we get to some problem here biden's an incompetent and and he gets us into a lot of problems all over the place uh
[1:16:17] Bob Dobbs: but that leads into a flip a somersault is is a
[1:16:22] Bob Dobbs: hope a belief like that even relevant in McLuhan studies?
[1:16:26] Cameron McEwen: Of course it is,
[1:16:27] Cameron McEwen: because remember the only way out of the cul-de-sac of nihilism is to swim in the gap that leads you into a different order.
[1:16:40] Cameron McEwen: So in the past,
[1:16:44] Cameron McEwen: religious belief led people to understand that
[1:16:50] Cameron McEwen: The transitions,
[1:16:52] Cameron McEwen: both in life and to death,
[1:16:55] Cameron McEwen: are kind of natural and can be swum in.
[1:17:02] Cameron McEwen: We've lost all of that.
[1:17:04] Cameron McEwen: The whole condition of being in the cul-de-sac of nihilism is that the gap appears only as death,
[1:17:14] Cameron McEwen: and so only to be something avoided.
[1:17:17] Cameron McEwen: So the very thing that we need most...
[1:17:20] Cameron McEwen: that is to say,
[1:17:22] Cameron McEwen: dialogue of media,
[1:17:23] Cameron McEwen: dialogue of perceptions,
[1:17:25] Cameron McEwen: understanding media,
[1:17:27] Cameron McEwen: can even be attempted because the prerequisite to that is to swim in the gap.
[1:17:34] Cameron McEwen: Okay,
[1:17:35] Bob Dobbs: there's the cul-de-sac,
[1:17:36] Bob Dobbs: there's the paradox.
[1:17:37] Bob Dobbs: So you hope to be a representative of the solution by swimming in the gap.
[1:17:47] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[1:17:48] Bob Dobbs: having a gap about what you would tell the White House.
[1:17:52] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[1:17:54] Cameron McEwen: but as I said at the beginning,
[1:17:59] Cameron McEwen: I don't think telling the White House amounts to...
[1:18:02] Bob Dobbs: Who would you like to tell?
[1:18:04] Bob Dobbs: Is there anybody?
[1:18:06] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:18:07] Cameron McEwen: you see,
[1:18:09] Cameron McEwen: yeah,
[1:18:09] Cameron McEwen: I think so.
[1:18:10] Cameron McEwen: It's like the one in
[1:18:11] Cameron McEwen: 10 million that McLuhan talks about.
[1:18:16] Cameron McEwen: in talking with you and in writing my blog,
[1:18:19] Cameron McEwen: I'm not necessarily addressing any singular person.
[1:18:25] Cameron McEwen: I'm addressing that person or those persons who can understand what I'm talking about or writing about.
[1:18:34] Bob Dobbs: Like Michael in the comments.
[1:18:37] Bob Dobbs: He said,
[1:18:37] Bob Dobbs: this is the greatest conversation on the Internet.
[1:18:42] Bob Dobbs: So the...
[1:18:45] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:18:46] Bob Dobbs: so you're saying that it seems that you are going to,
[1:18:53] Bob Dobbs: quote,
[1:18:53] Bob Dobbs: limit yourself to a curriculum,
[1:18:56] Bob Dobbs: an education,
[1:18:58] Bob Dobbs: an institute.
[1:19:00] Bob Dobbs: You welcome anybody else that has things going.
[1:19:03] Bob Dobbs: What do you see is representative of the colossal nihilism we're experiencing?
[1:19:10] Bob Dobbs: How could you prove that we're really in a bad?
[1:19:13] Bob Dobbs: I mean
[1:19:14] Bob Dobbs: I'm in a compound here,
[1:19:16] Bob Dobbs: all ages,
[1:19:18] Bob Dobbs: and they live pretty good,
[1:19:19] Bob Dobbs: peaceful lives.
[1:19:21] Bob Dobbs: Sure.
[1:19:21] Bob Dobbs: Occasionally they have a stroke or they die or something,
[1:19:24] Bob Dobbs: but
[1:19:26] Bob Dobbs: I'm not seeing the chaos in the cities.
[1:19:28] Bob Dobbs: But I'm on an island.
[1:19:30] Bob Dobbs: I'm on your island.
[1:19:34] Bob Dobbs: What do you see?
[1:19:35] Bob Dobbs: So I don't see the chaos of the cities.
[1:19:37] Bob Dobbs: I hear more and more about what's going on in the cities because I don't watch the news that much from other people.
[1:19:43] Bob Dobbs: It's pretty appalling.
[1:19:44] Bob Dobbs: I'm glad I'm here.
[1:19:46] Bob Dobbs: And you don't have to go driving through the highways and that where you are.
[1:19:51] Bob Dobbs: You can stay home a lot of your time,
[1:19:53] Bob Dobbs: right?
[1:19:54] Cameron McEwen: Sure.
[1:19:54] Bob Dobbs: So you have a pretty peaceful situation.
[1:19:57] Cameron McEwen: Sure.
[1:19:58] Bob Dobbs: So what is an example of this nihilism?
[1:20:01] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:20:02] Cameron McEwen: it's not everything is an example.
[1:20:07] Cameron McEwen: That means that in order to see it,
[1:20:10] Cameron McEwen: you need to.
[1:20:11] Cameron McEwen: to understand its foundations.
[1:20:15] Cameron McEwen: So
[1:20:16] Cameron McEwen: Nietzsche said,
[1:20:17] Cameron McEwen: what is nihilism?
[1:20:19] Cameron McEwen: The question why goes unanswered.
[1:20:23] Cameron McEwen: Nobody knows.
[1:20:25] Cameron McEwen: Everybody has lost their attachment to the earth.
[1:20:33] Cameron McEwen: Nobody knows why they're here.
[1:20:35] Cameron McEwen: Nobody knows where they're going.
[1:20:37] Cameron McEwen: Nobody knows how to found their values,
[1:20:42] Cameron McEwen: how to give a basis or give an accounting of their basis.
[1:20:49] Cameron McEwen: And this is what nihilism is.
[1:20:52] Cameron McEwen: Nihilism is...
[1:20:54] Cameron McEwen: a kind of petering out of reason.
[1:21:01] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:21:01] Bob Dobbs: let's say that every culture was relatively successful in the past,
[1:21:06] Bob Dobbs: people knew who they were,
[1:21:07] Bob Dobbs: but now we're in a new world where all those panaceas don't work.
[1:21:13] Bob Dobbs: And we always were adrift and lost and didn't know it.
[1:21:17] Bob Dobbs: Now we can know it.
[1:21:18] Bob Dobbs: Why make that a problem?
[1:21:23] Bob Dobbs: Maybe we need to accept it.
[1:21:24] Bob Dobbs: Well,
[1:21:24] Bob Dobbs: you actually are a saint,
[1:21:25] Bob Dobbs: except the cul-de-sac.
[1:21:27] Bob Dobbs: Recognize you're in it.
[1:21:29] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:21:29] Cameron McEwen: no,
[1:21:30] Cameron McEwen: the cul-de-sac itself is an effect.
[1:21:34] Cameron McEwen: Of the nihilism?
[1:21:36] Cameron McEwen: Everything is an effect.
[1:21:38] Cameron McEwen: So the people that are in the cul-de-sac don't know that their identity and values and everything in the cul-de-sac is an effect.
[1:21:49] Cameron McEwen: So the number one problem for the island planet...
[1:21:54] Cameron McEwen: is that it's in the process of destroying itself,
[1:21:59] Cameron McEwen: right?
[1:21:59] Cameron McEwen: We're spending trillions of dollars to make things worse every year,
[1:22:04] Cameron McEwen: right?
[1:22:05] Cameron McEwen: And at this moment,
[1:22:06] Cameron McEwen: we're killing people,
[1:22:08] Cameron McEwen: right?
[1:22:09] Cameron McEwen: So
[1:22:09] Cameron McEwen: Biden is saying
[1:22:11] Cameron McEwen: Putin is a killer at the very same time that he's killing people.
[1:22:15] Cameron McEwen: Biden is killing people,
[1:22:16] Cameron McEwen: right?
[1:22:17] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:22:17] Cameron McEwen: So we're in a situation where things don't make sense.
[1:22:24] Cameron McEwen: where the great shining city on the hill,
[1:22:28] Cameron McEwen: the modern Rome,
[1:22:31] Cameron McEwen: is spending all these trillions to wage war.
[1:22:37] Cameron McEwen: And the man on the street,
[1:22:41] Cameron McEwen: the woman on the street,
[1:22:43] Cameron McEwen: has no idea why we're doing this.
[1:22:45] Bob Dobbs: But you're not a peacenik.
[1:22:47] Bob Dobbs: You're not pleading peace.
[1:22:51] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:22:51] Cameron McEwen: I am,
[1:22:51] Cameron McEwen: but not...
[1:22:53] Cameron McEwen: in the traditional way.
[1:22:55] Cameron McEwen: What McLuhan was doing was trying to suggest another way of approaching these problems that would actually lead to peace rather than the peacenik solution,
[1:23:09] Cameron McEwen: which doesn't lead to peace.
[1:23:12] Bob Dobbs: So you see McLuhan as the only solution today?
[1:23:17] Cameron McEwen: No,
[1:23:18] Cameron McEwen: again,
[1:23:18] Cameron McEwen: Bob.
[1:23:19] Bob Dobbs: See,
[1:23:19] Bob Dobbs: I'm trying to put you in a box.
[1:23:21] Cameron McEwen: We can't.
[1:23:22] Bob Dobbs: I'm trying to put you in a box and you're not going to let that happen.
[1:23:27] Bob Dobbs: But it sounds like you are in a box because you have no other things other than the offer the McLuhan questions.
[1:23:38] Cameron McEwen: No,
[1:23:38] Cameron McEwen: that's not true.
[1:23:40] Cameron McEwen: If you actually looked at my blog and you could click,
[1:23:45] Cameron McEwen: I mean,
[1:23:45] Cameron McEwen: just on influences,
[1:23:48] Cameron McEwen: I've got posts on Aquinas,
[1:23:50] Cameron McEwen: Aristotle,
[1:23:51] Cameron McEwen: Benjamin,
[1:23:52] Cameron McEwen: Chester.
[1:23:52] Cameron McEwen: and Coleridge,
[1:23:53] Cameron McEwen: Deutsch,
[1:23:54] Cameron McEwen: Einstein,
[1:23:54] Cameron McEwen: and Eisenstein.
[1:23:56] Cameron McEwen: I mean,
[1:23:56] Cameron McEwen: I'm only up to the fifth letter of the alphabet here.
[1:23:59] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[1:24:00] Cameron McEwen: I could keep on going.
[1:24:03] Cameron McEwen: Here,
[1:24:04] Bob Dobbs: fix your mic.
[1:24:05] Bob Dobbs: Fix your mic.
[1:24:06] Cameron McEwen: Okay.
[1:24:07] Cameron McEwen: Just adjust it a bit.
[1:24:09] Cameron McEwen: Okay.
[1:24:09] Cameron McEwen: All I did was move my chair a little bit.
[1:24:13] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:24:13] Bob Dobbs: don't do that.
[1:24:14] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:24:15] Bob Dobbs: But,
[1:24:16] Bob Dobbs: yeah,
[1:24:16] Bob Dobbs: I don't want to interrupt your thoughts.
[1:24:17] Bob Dobbs: So,
[1:24:17] Bob Dobbs: yeah,
[1:24:18] Bob Dobbs: you're just up to letter E.
[1:24:20] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[1:24:21] Cameron McEwen: So I'm very...
[1:24:21] Cameron McEwen: far from thinking that
[1:24:24] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan is the be-all and the end-all and that you can understand McLuhan aside from understanding other people.
[1:24:32] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:24:33] Bob Dobbs: but you're in the gap and the gap includes that aspect that emphasizes McLuhan over the others because he lived at the end,
[1:24:42] Bob Dobbs: so to speak.
[1:24:44] Bob Dobbs: He had 20-20 hindsight.
[1:24:46] Bob Dobbs: Nobody else did.
[1:24:49] Cameron McEwen: As you know,
[1:24:49] Cameron McEwen: I don't believe in that Thank you.
[1:24:51] Cameron McEwen: chronological way of looking at things.
[1:24:55] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[1:24:55] Bob Dobbs: but in the gap that can be included.
[1:24:59] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was not smarter than Plato.
[1:25:05] Cameron McEwen: Plato saw better what's going on in human life than McLuhan did.
[1:25:13] Cameron McEwen: But McLuhan is more accessible now.
[1:25:16] Cameron McEwen: So
[1:25:19] Cameron McEwen: I choose instead of
[1:25:21] Cameron McEwen: getting into contentious academic questions about Plato.
[1:25:26] Cameron McEwen: I choose to take up the successful predictions of
[1:25:32] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan, and then I try to say,
[1:25:35] Cameron McEwen: how is this guy who died 40 years ago,
[1:25:38] Cameron McEwen: how is he so prescient about what's going on right now?
[1:25:43] Cameron McEwen: And that's a very interesting question,
[1:25:46] Cameron McEwen: I think.
[1:25:47] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:25:47] Bob Dobbs: and he's more prescient than anybody else of his era,
[1:25:51] Bob Dobbs: of his life?
[1:25:51] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.
[1:25:52] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:25:53] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.
[1:25:54] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[1:25:54] Cameron McEwen: And he's...
[1:25:56] Cameron McEwen: more prescient about the particulars of our life today than Plato,
[1:26:02] Cameron McEwen: right?
[1:26:04] Cameron McEwen: Plato doesn't have too much to say about the
[1:26:07] Cameron McEwen: CIA and about atomic weapons and stuff like that.
[1:26:12] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:26:12] Bob Dobbs: he got distracted by Atlantis.
[1:26:18] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:26:18] Bob Dobbs: so
[1:26:20] Bob Dobbs: I see what you're saying,
[1:26:21] Bob Dobbs: sort of.
[1:26:22] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[1:26:22] Bob Dobbs: are you there?
[1:26:23] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:26:25] Bob Dobbs: So let's go back to who,
[1:26:28] Bob Dobbs: when,
[1:26:28] Bob Dobbs: and where is this citadel?
[1:26:30] Bob Dobbs: Would we start thinking and talking?
[1:26:32] Bob Dobbs: Would you start quoting?
[1:26:34] Bob Dobbs: Or you would say,
[1:26:35] Bob Dobbs: this is something we don't know,
[1:26:37] Bob Dobbs: and that's that.
[1:26:39] Bob Dobbs: No,
[1:26:39] Bob Dobbs: no,
[1:26:40] Cameron McEwen: it's something that desperately needs investigation.
[1:26:46] Cameron McEwen: If identity is correlate with spheres of perception,
[1:26:56] Cameron McEwen: And just to take a throwaway example,
[1:27:03] Cameron McEwen: let's just say that there's a sense of identity that's correlate with Gutenberg and another sense of identity that's correlate with
[1:27:13] Cameron McEwen: Marconi.
[1:27:14] Cameron McEwen: And let's say that,
[1:27:17] Cameron McEwen: as McLuhan himself says,
[1:27:20] Cameron McEwen: that people aren't.
[1:27:24] Cameron McEwen: only in one or the other.
[1:27:27] Cameron McEwen: So if you have identities that are associated with both,
[1:27:32] Cameron McEwen: then there must be something else that is somehow in flight above them.
[1:27:41] Bob Dobbs: Why is that?
[1:27:43] Bob Dobbs: Why does it have to be that?
[1:27:46] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:27:47] Cameron McEwen: it's like
[1:27:49] Cameron McEwen: Kant addressed this question,
[1:27:50] Cameron McEwen: actually,
[1:27:51] Cameron McEwen: but it's because
[1:27:54] Cameron McEwen: If the same person,
[1:27:55] Cameron McEwen: if the same Bob Dobbs can at one time perceive things chronologically according to the
[1:28:08] Cameron McEwen: Gutenberg mode,
[1:28:10] Cameron McEwen: and he's actually strongly inclined to do that,
[1:28:15] Cameron McEwen: but at other times Bob Dobbs is excellent in a kind of jitterbug.
[1:28:23] Cameron McEwen: understanding,
[1:28:24] Cameron McEwen: according to the electric mode,
[1:28:29] Cameron McEwen: if the same Bob Dobbs is in both of those,
[1:28:33] Cameron McEwen: then there must be a Bob
[1:28:35] Cameron McEwen: Dobbs that is somehow above those two identities.
[1:28:41] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[1:28:42] Cameron McEwen: But that's a very ghost-like,
[1:28:45] Cameron McEwen: strange,
[1:28:46] Cameron McEwen: nobody,
[1:28:48] Cameron McEwen: as McLuhan says in Take Today.
[1:28:52] Cameron McEwen: If we are going to understand the working of media,
[1:28:55] Cameron McEwen: eventually we're going to have to understand that nobody.
[1:29:00] Bob Dobbs: And you're the third position.
[1:29:06] Bob Dobbs: What did I want to say about that?
[1:29:12] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[1:29:12] Bob Dobbs: is that covered by your phrase,
[1:29:13] Bob Dobbs: the technique of flight?
[1:29:16] Cameron McEwen: Yes.
[1:29:16] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[1:29:17] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.
[1:29:17] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:29:19] Bob Dobbs: The flight over the two.
[1:29:22] Cameron McEwen: Yes.
[1:29:23] Bob Dobbs: The flight out of the tube to somewhere,
[1:29:26] Bob Dobbs: to a third place.
[1:29:27] Cameron McEwen: Also that,
[1:29:28] Cameron McEwen: also that.
[1:29:29] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:29:29] Bob Dobbs: and it's interesting how he did play with flight in the quote to show.
[1:29:34] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[1:29:34] Cameron McEwen: so lifelong,
[1:29:34] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[1:29:36] Bob Dobbs: All right,
[1:29:37] Bob Dobbs: so,
[1:29:40] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[1:29:40] Bob Dobbs: he used to say,
[1:29:43] Bob Dobbs: we talked about it last week,
[1:29:44] Bob Dobbs: movie was the car as airplane was the TV.
[1:29:48] Bob Dobbs: So are we flying by the seat of our pants when we were watching TV?
[1:29:53] Cameron McEwen: Yes.
[1:29:54] Cameron McEwen: In fact,
[1:29:55] Cameron McEwen: we're always flying.
[1:29:56] Cameron McEwen: We just don't know that we are.
[1:29:58] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:30:01] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[1:30:01] Bob Dobbs: So
[1:30:04] Bob Dobbs: I think you need to say a little bit more about this third level.
[1:30:10] Bob Dobbs: What has your research come up with?
[1:30:14] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:30:15] Cameron McEwen: I think that's actually what we've been talking about in our whole conversation today.
[1:30:19] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:30:21] Cameron McEwen: Namely that...
[1:30:23] Cameron McEwen: If there is...
[1:30:25] Cameron McEwen: a level that can understand morality,
[1:30:29] Cameron McEwen: I mean media plural,
[1:30:31] Cameron McEwen: that's understanding media,
[1:30:34] Cameron McEwen: then that needs to be made concrete,
[1:30:40] Cameron McEwen: needs to be something that we do in school and out of school,
[1:30:45] Cameron McEwen: needs to be something that applies not only to individual perception,
[1:30:50] Cameron McEwen: but also to society,
[1:30:53] Cameron McEwen: culture,
[1:30:53] Cameron McEwen: politics.
[1:30:54] Cameron McEwen: It's war and peace.
[1:30:56] Cameron McEwen: And that third position,
[1:31:00] Cameron McEwen: as you're calling it,
[1:31:02] Cameron McEwen: is a very,
[1:31:03] Cameron McEwen: very important thing.
[1:31:07] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:31:10] Cameron McEwen: And by the way,
[1:31:12] Cameron McEwen: I think
[1:31:12] Cameron McEwen: Bob Logan in Toronto has done an awful lot of thought about this third position.
[1:31:21] Cameron McEwen: I'm not sure if he's...
[1:31:24] Cameron McEwen: understood it properly in relation to
[1:31:26] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan, but he's definitely understood the problem and has attempted to articulate it.
[1:31:37] Bob Dobbs: Where do you see that?
[1:31:39] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[1:31:40] Cameron McEwen: he actually put out a book about that.
[1:31:43] Bob Dobbs: But you didn't read it.
[1:31:46] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:31:49] Cameron McEwen: the book that I'm thinking of is a book he edited.
[1:31:53] Cameron McEwen: And it has pieces in it by McLuhan and others,
[1:31:59] Cameron McEwen: and I've read some of those.
[1:32:03] Cameron McEwen: I haven't read
[1:32:06] Cameron McEwen: Logan on McLuhan because
[1:32:08] Cameron McEwen: I don't think he understood
[1:32:13] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan in relation to the problems that he properly saw in other areas.
[1:32:23] Cameron McEwen: would be profitable to an understanding of
[1:32:30] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan by him.
[1:32:32] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[1:32:33] Bob Dobbs: I have a book that's edited by Logan.
[1:32:35] Bob Dobbs: Are you talking about the ones about faith?
[1:32:40] Cameron McEwen: No,
[1:32:40] Cameron McEwen: I don't think so.
[1:32:41] Cameron McEwen: I think it's called
[1:32:42] Cameron McEwen: The Third Position.
[1:32:44] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[1:32:45] Bob Dobbs: okay.
[1:32:46] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[1:32:47] Cameron McEwen: I forget.
[1:32:48] Cameron McEwen: I haven't seen it in quite a long time.
[1:32:53] Cameron McEwen: Maybe next time
[1:32:55] Cameron McEwen: I'll have looked it out if you would like me to do so.
[1:32:59] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[1:32:59] Bob Dobbs: Let me just put in Robert Logan.
[1:33:02] Bob Dobbs: You may have the wrong person.
[1:33:04] Bob Dobbs: No,
[1:33:04] Cameron McEwen: no.
[1:33:06] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:33:06] Bob Dobbs: Logan,
[1:33:07] Bob Dobbs: let's just try third position.
[1:33:18] Bob Dobbs: No?
[1:33:21] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:33:21] Bob Dobbs: I'll go over here.
[1:33:38] Bob Dobbs: Third position for the violin.
[1:33:40] Bob Dobbs: No.
[1:33:48] Bob Dobbs: Gee,
[1:33:48] Bob Dobbs: if you put in
[1:33:49] Bob Dobbs: Robert Logan,
[1:33:52] Bob Dobbs: you get TV shows.
[1:33:55] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:33:55] Bob Dobbs: maybe I better just indicate both.
[1:33:58] Cameron McEwen: I've got it already.
[1:33:59] Cameron McEwen: It's called Canada's Third Option,
[1:34:02] Cameron McEwen: and it was published by
[1:34:04] Cameron McEwen: Logan in 1978.
[1:34:07] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[1:34:07] Bob Dobbs: that's real early.
[1:34:11] Bob Dobbs: That's when he was working for the Liberal Party.
[1:34:13] Cameron McEwen: It's early for Logan,
[1:34:14] Cameron McEwen: but it's late for McLuhan.
[1:34:16] Cameron McEwen: In 1978,
[1:34:17] Cameron McEwen: he was on his last legs.
[1:34:21] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:34:22] Bob Dobbs: that may be when he was involved with the Liberal Party.
[1:34:26] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[1:34:26] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely,
[1:34:28] Bob Dobbs: it was.
[1:34:29] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:34:29] Bob Dobbs: let me see.
[1:34:29] Bob Dobbs: Candice,
[1:34:33] Cameron McEwen: what was our third position?
[1:34:34] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:34:34] Cameron McEwen: the third,
[1:34:35] Cameron McEwen: wait a sec,
[1:34:35] Cameron McEwen: are you asking?
[1:34:36] Bob Dobbs: You,
[1:34:36] Bob Dobbs: or it.
[1:34:40] Cameron McEwen: Okay,
[1:34:40] Cameron McEwen: but I mean,
[1:34:42] Cameron McEwen: we've got a number of things up in the air here.
[1:34:44] Cameron McEwen: I don't know if you're talking about Canada's third option,
[1:34:47] Cameron McEwen: like
[1:34:48] Cameron McEwen: Logan was talking about,
[1:34:49] Cameron McEwen: or if you're talking about the third position that we were earlier talking about.
[1:34:54] Cameron McEwen: No,
[1:34:54] Cameron McEwen: no,
[1:34:54] Cameron McEwen: Logan's.
[1:34:55] Bob Dobbs: What is Canada's third position,
[1:34:57] Bob Dobbs: can you say?
[1:34:58] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:35:00] Cameron McEwen: I think what he was talking about is something that's actually quite close to what Ennis was talking about.
[1:35:11] Cameron McEwen: Of course,
[1:35:11] Cameron McEwen: in 1978,
[1:35:16] Cameron McEwen: Ennis had been dead almost 30 years.
[1:35:19] Cameron McEwen: So any sort of correlation.
[1:35:24] Cameron McEwen: is only rough,
[1:35:26] Cameron McEwen: but the third option is to not be associated with,
[1:35:34] Cameron McEwen: or not to be identical with the position of the United States,
[1:35:38] Cameron McEwen: and not also to take up the position of the Soviet Union,
[1:35:43] Cameron McEwen: to be in a third position that was advocated by people like Lester Pearson.
[1:35:52] Bob Dobbs: Right,
[1:35:52] Bob Dobbs: but it's not,
[1:35:53] Bob Dobbs: it's optional.
[1:35:56] Bob Dobbs: Option is the title.
[1:35:58] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[1:35:58] Cameron McEwen: Candidate option.
[1:36:00] Cameron McEwen: Actually,
[1:36:00] Cameron McEwen: the word option is important because increasingly in the
[1:36:07] Cameron McEwen: 80s and 90s,
[1:36:10] Cameron McEwen: that option would be refused.
[1:36:12] Cameron McEwen: And so it was option in the sort of disappearing sense.
[1:36:21] Cameron McEwen: Canada chose
[1:36:24] Cameron McEwen: to increasingly identify itself with the United States in every way,
[1:36:32] Cameron McEwen: culturally,
[1:36:33] Cameron McEwen: politically,
[1:36:34] Cameron McEwen: militarily,
[1:36:37] Cameron McEwen: and there we are.
[1:36:40] Cameron McEwen: I regard that as unfortunate.
[1:36:43] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:36:43] Bob Dobbs: I have here,
[1:36:45] Bob Dobbs: here is Logan.
[1:36:48] Bob Dobbs: He did The Extended Mind,
[1:36:50] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan Misunderstood.
[1:36:52] Bob Dobbs: The Poetry of Physics and the Physics of Poetry,
[1:36:54] Bob Dobbs: The Alphabet Effect,
[1:36:55] Bob Dobbs: he did that with McLuhan,
[1:36:57] Bob Dobbs: Understanding New Media,
[1:37:00] Bob Dobbs: The Sixth Language,
[1:37:02] Bob Dobbs: Collaborate to Compete,
[1:37:04] Bob Dobbs: The Sixth Language,
[1:37:06] Bob Dobbs: The Fifth Language.
[1:37:08] Bob Dobbs: So he's got a lot of books out,
[1:37:11] Bob Dobbs: and he didn't have the third option there.
[1:37:13] Bob Dobbs: That's,
[1:37:13] Bob Dobbs: I guess,
[1:37:13] Bob Dobbs: probably out of print.
[1:37:16] Bob Dobbs: Did you buy it many years later or at the time it came out?
[1:37:21] Cameron McEwen: No,
[1:37:22] Cameron McEwen: many years later.
[1:37:23] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:37:23] Cameron McEwen: And
[1:37:24] Cameron McEwen: I think the essay,
[1:37:26] Cameron McEwen: I can't remember exactly which essay is in there,
[1:37:29] Cameron McEwen: probably the one about Canada.
[1:37:31] Bob Dobbs: Borderline.
[1:37:32] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[1:37:33] Cameron McEwen: exactly.
[1:37:35] Cameron McEwen: So that's in many other books as well.
[1:37:37] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[1:37:38] Cameron McEwen: I probably just bought it to,
[1:37:42] Cameron McEwen: you know,
[1:37:42] Cameron McEwen: to have it as part of the Macomb Holdings.
[1:37:45] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[1:37:46] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:37:47] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:37:47] Bob Dobbs: so back to the third option,
[1:37:49] Bob Dobbs: the technique of flight.
[1:37:53] Bob Dobbs: How you would communicate this,
[1:37:58] Bob Dobbs: have you had anybody respond seriously to your blog other than me or some other people?
[1:38:08] Bob Dobbs: I don't know,
[1:38:09] Bob Dobbs: maybe Andrew Chrystall.
[1:38:11] Bob Dobbs: How many people can you say really were serious consumers of your blog?
[1:38:18] Cameron McEwen: Very few.
[1:38:19] Cameron McEwen: Very few.
[1:38:20] Bob Dobbs: That had told you.
[1:38:21] Bob Dobbs: There may be people reading it that you don't know of.
[1:38:24] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:38:24] Cameron McEwen: one of the problems I have in the blog is that
[1:38:28] Cameron McEwen: I'm not able to take comments,
[1:38:30] Cameron McEwen: although I would love to do so.
[1:38:32] Cameron McEwen: But early on in the blog,
[1:38:38] Cameron McEwen: it was attacked over and over and over again by spammers.
[1:38:44] Cameron McEwen: and why they...
[1:38:48] Cameron McEwen: decided to pick on me and why they came up with innovative ways to do it,
[1:38:57] Cameron McEwen: I don't know.
[1:38:59] Cameron McEwen: But at the end of the day,
[1:39:00] Cameron McEwen: we weren't able to shut it off except by turning off comments,
[1:39:05] Cameron McEwen: which is very unfortunate.
[1:39:07] Cameron McEwen: But even,
[1:39:09] Cameron McEwen: for example,
[1:39:09] Cameron McEwen: I said,
[1:39:10] Cameron McEwen: well,
[1:39:10] Cameron McEwen: let's just allow comments under review.
[1:39:13] Cameron McEwen: And then I would get up in the morning and there would be 10,000 comments.
[1:39:18] Cameron McEwen: By the spammers,
[1:39:19] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[1:39:19] Bob Dobbs: And this has been 2012,
[1:39:21] Bob Dobbs: 2015?
[1:39:24] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:39:24] Cameron McEwen: I started the blog in 2013,
[1:39:27] Cameron McEwen: I think.
[1:39:28] Cameron McEwen: So probably this was,
[1:39:31] Cameron McEwen: we tried many different solutions in 2013 and 2014.
[1:39:37] Cameron McEwen: And finally I said,
[1:39:38] Cameron McEwen: well,
[1:39:38] Cameron McEwen: forget it.
[1:39:39] Cameron McEwen: I'll just write the blog for now and we'll find a solution in the future sometime.
[1:39:47] Bob Dobbs: And you say we,
[1:39:48] Bob Dobbs: who is the we?
[1:39:51] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[1:39:51] Cameron McEwen: I work with a company in Germany to host the blog and to add features to it,
[1:40:01] Cameron McEwen: like the advanced search.
[1:40:03] Bob Dobbs: So they're still doing it,
[1:40:06] Bob Dobbs: hosting it for you?
[1:40:08] Cameron McEwen: Yes.
[1:40:08] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[1:40:09] Bob Dobbs: Is that a company that your career brought you in touch with,
[1:40:14] Bob Dobbs: or you found it separately on your own?
[1:40:17] Cameron McEwen: No,
[1:40:17] Cameron McEwen: my career brought me in touch with it,
[1:40:21] Cameron McEwen: and then I invested in it.
[1:40:23] Cameron McEwen: So
[1:40:30] Cameron McEwen: I'm closely associated,
[1:40:31] Cameron McEwen: put it that way.
[1:40:32] Bob Dobbs: Right,
[1:40:32] Bob Dobbs: and friends of yours.
[1:40:34] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:40:37] Bob Dobbs: you have made a discovery.
[1:40:39] Bob Dobbs: I'm going to go into another topic.
[1:40:40] Bob Dobbs: Though I still don't know.
[1:40:43] Bob Dobbs: Maybe we can talk a little bit more about what the heck.
[1:40:46] Bob Dobbs: Are you attempting to do,
[1:40:48] Bob Dobbs: and McLuhan failed,
[1:40:50] Bob Dobbs: did McLuhan get somewheres because we picked up what we thought he was doing?
[1:40:57] Bob Dobbs: And millions of other people think that they are doing what he's doing.
[1:41:00] Bob Dobbs: I mean,
[1:41:00] Bob Dobbs: he's taught all over the place,
[1:41:02] Bob Dobbs: right?
[1:41:02] Bob Dobbs: He's translated.
[1:41:04] Bob Dobbs: He's spreading.
[1:41:06] Bob Dobbs: But you don't think that's adequate?
[1:41:10] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[1:41:13] Cameron McEwen: Because I believe that takes...
[1:41:15] Cameron McEwen: All of that takes place in the cul-de-sac,
[1:41:19] Cameron McEwen: and it's like the people on the island going about their business as shepherds and weavers,
[1:41:27] Cameron McEwen: instead of concentrating on the fact that the island is in peril.
[1:41:35] Bob Dobbs: But why the heck would anybody listen to us to say,
[1:41:40] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[1:41:41] Bob Dobbs: we're telling you Macleod is more important.
[1:41:44] Bob Dobbs: We're telling people.
[1:41:45] Bob Dobbs: Then whatever they're studying,
[1:41:46] Bob Dobbs: that's Rabelais.
[1:41:47] Bob Dobbs: That was the Manipian strategy.
[1:41:49] Bob Dobbs: Everybody put down their plow and study me.
[1:41:51] Bob Dobbs: That's what Rabelais said.
[1:41:53] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[1:41:55] Cameron McEwen: so that didn't work very well.
[1:41:58] Bob Dobbs: Nothing has worked.
[1:42:00] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:42:00] Bob Dobbs: look at what Duchamp said.
[1:42:01] Bob Dobbs: There's no solution because there's no problem.
[1:42:05] Bob Dobbs: Granted,
[1:42:06] Bob Dobbs: it looks like there's a lot of problems if you believe our lives are short and brutish and painful.
[1:42:16] Cameron McEwen: But
[1:42:17] Cameron McEwen: Duchamp can be seen as a great artist on the island,
[1:42:21] Cameron McEwen: saying there's no problem.
[1:42:23] Cameron McEwen: Meanwhile,
[1:42:25] Bob Dobbs: the island is in peril.
[1:42:28] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[1:42:30] Bob Dobbs: Well,
[1:42:32] Bob Dobbs: it sounds like you would,
[1:42:34] Bob Dobbs: if you had a little more support,
[1:42:36] Bob Dobbs: even a classroom or a Zoom or something,
[1:42:40] Bob Dobbs: that would be an improvement from where you are now.
[1:42:45] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:42:45] Cameron McEwen: I don't know,
[1:42:46] Cameron McEwen: Bob.
[1:42:49] Cameron McEwen: I don't necessarily believe in improvement like that.
[1:42:53] Cameron McEwen: That's a Gutenbergian notion.
[1:42:55] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[1:42:56] Cameron McEwen: You seem to believe in things like that.
[1:42:58] Cameron McEwen: No,
[1:42:59] Bob Dobbs: I don't.
[1:43:00] Bob Dobbs: I'm more cynical than you.
[1:43:02] Bob Dobbs: I've been doing this longer than you.
[1:43:06] Bob Dobbs: But the,
[1:43:08] Bob Dobbs: see,
[1:43:08] Bob Dobbs: it threw me off there.
[1:43:09] Bob Dobbs: Let's see.
[1:43:11] Bob Dobbs: Improvement.
[1:43:14] Cameron McEwen: You're trying to put me in a little bit of a box.
[1:43:17] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:43:17] Bob Dobbs: and see how you wiggle out of it.
[1:43:19] Bob Dobbs: You wiggle out of it.
[1:43:20] Bob Dobbs: That's right.
[1:43:20] Bob Dobbs: You've done pretty good.
[1:43:22] Bob Dobbs: But you're saying you're seeing this nihilism everywhere.
[1:43:27] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[1:43:28] Bob Dobbs: And that's clouding your vision.
[1:43:31] Bob Dobbs: You're seeing too much of it.
[1:43:33] Bob Dobbs: But millions would agree with you.
[1:43:36] Bob Dobbs: Billions might agree with you.
[1:43:38] Bob Dobbs: But the agreement doesn't matter.
[1:43:40] Bob Dobbs: Nobody can get a leverage point to do something.
[1:43:44] Bob Dobbs: of non-improvement.
[1:43:46] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:43:47] Cameron McEwen: correct.
[1:43:49] Cameron McEwen: That's why thinking needs to begin with that problem.
[1:43:55] Cameron McEwen: Thinking needs to begin with the problem of nihilism,
[1:44:00] Cameron McEwen: with the problem of the cul-de-sac,
[1:44:03] Cameron McEwen: and sort of go from there.
[1:44:06] Cameron McEwen: And if it doesn't go from there,
[1:44:09] Cameron McEwen: then
[1:44:10] Cameron McEwen: I don't see it as...
[1:44:12] Bob Dobbs: You don't approve and you will not be contributing.
[1:44:16] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[1:44:17] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:44:18] Cameron McEwen: it is contributing.
[1:44:19] Cameron McEwen: It's contributing to our destruction.
[1:44:21] Bob Dobbs: No,
[1:44:21] Bob Dobbs: no,
[1:44:22] Bob Dobbs: that you would not contribute.
[1:44:24] Bob Dobbs: If something didn't recognize the cul-de-sac,
[1:44:27] Bob Dobbs: you wouldn't assist them.
[1:44:29] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[1:44:34] Bob Dobbs: Sounds like a Don Quixote operation,
[1:44:37] Bob Dobbs: but you're doing pretty good at it.
[1:44:40] Bob Dobbs: I think you are producing a very valuable archive of definitions or collection of quotes that nobody's,
[1:44:47] Bob Dobbs: collaging of quotes that nobody knows about at all.
[1:44:51] Bob Dobbs: As a matter of fact,
[1:44:52] Bob Dobbs: you may be presenting McLuhan better than McLuhan did.
[1:44:55] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:44:56] Cameron McEwen: we'll see.
[1:44:59] Cameron McEwen: What I'm trying to do is present,
[1:45:04] Cameron McEwen: or at least make McLuhan accessible digitally.
[1:45:11] Cameron McEwen: in a way that
[1:45:13] Cameron McEwen: I hope is representative both of his work and of his promise.
[1:45:21] Bob Dobbs: Right,
[1:45:21] Bob Dobbs: now,
[1:45:23] Bob Dobbs: I had the thought there.
[1:45:26] Bob Dobbs: As we were trying to do,
[1:45:27] Bob Dobbs: now what was the thought?
[1:45:33] Bob Dobbs: Funny how these thoughts come in,
[1:45:34] Bob Dobbs: then they go away.
[1:45:38] Bob Dobbs: We start off,
[1:45:40] Bob Dobbs: oh yeah,
[1:45:41] Bob Dobbs: we're doing,
[1:45:43] Bob Dobbs: we're trying to say,
[1:45:44] Bob Dobbs: you wrote to me privately,
[1:45:45] Bob Dobbs: Bob,
[1:45:45] Bob Dobbs: before we go into your book,
[1:45:47] Bob Dobbs: I wanted to find what McLuhan is.
[1:45:50] Bob Dobbs: The M.
[1:45:50] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan in quotes,
[1:45:52] Bob Dobbs: and that's what we're trying to do in this session,
[1:45:55] Bob Dobbs: session number 18.
[1:45:58] Bob Dobbs: Have we defined what McLuhan is?
[1:46:01] Cameron McEwen: A little bit.
[1:46:03] Cameron McEwen: What I would like to do,
[1:46:05] Cameron McEwen: certainly not today,
[1:46:06] Cameron McEwen: but
[1:46:08] Cameron McEwen: I would like to perhaps take the post on taking flight and just go through it line by line.
[1:46:19] Cameron McEwen: And
[1:46:20] Cameron McEwen: I think that would serve to define what I take
[1:46:26] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan to be up to,
[1:46:28] Cameron McEwen: and therefore how I will participate in the dialogue with you about your book.
[1:46:36] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:46:36] Bob Dobbs: so we could have stated that at the beginning and done that in
[1:46:39] Bob Dobbs: 10 minutes,
[1:46:40] Bob Dobbs: right?
[1:46:41] Bob Dobbs: But we went all around the mountain.
[1:46:44] Bob Dobbs: What was the name of the post?
[1:46:45] Bob Dobbs: Which one?
[1:46:46] Bob Dobbs: Technique of Flight?
[1:46:47] Cameron McEwen: Technique of flight,
[1:46:48] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[1:46:49] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:46:50] Bob Dobbs: do I have that right here?
[1:46:57] Bob Dobbs: No,
[1:46:58] Bob Dobbs: I put that,
[1:46:58] Bob Dobbs: I clicked that one off.
[1:46:59] Bob Dobbs: So we don't want to do it now.
[1:47:03] Bob Dobbs: So you're moving towards ending.
[1:47:04] Bob Dobbs: So let's hear,
[1:47:08] Bob Dobbs: you told me a bit about this.
[1:47:10] Bob Dobbs: You've made quite a discovery in the world of McLuhan,
[1:47:13] Bob Dobbs: we could say,
[1:47:14] Bob Dobbs: or in the world of communication.
[1:47:19] Cameron McEwen: We'll see.
[1:47:20] Bob Dobbs: All right.
[1:47:21] Cameron McEwen: I would say the test of a discovery in communication is to communicate.
[1:47:30] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[1:47:31] Cameron McEwen: And since I haven't cracked that nut,
[1:47:34] Cameron McEwen: I would say that
[1:47:35] Cameron McEwen: I'm a beginner.
[1:47:39] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[1:47:40] Bob Dobbs: But you did make this discovery.
[1:47:42] Bob Dobbs: And introduce it.
[1:47:45] Bob Dobbs: Tell me,
[1:47:46] Bob Dobbs: do you begin with Rupert Lodge?
[1:47:50] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[1:47:50] Cameron McEwen: are you talking about the discovery of the
[1:47:55] Cameron McEwen: Maritime School of Communication?
[1:47:58] Cameron McEwen: I'm not sure what you mean by discovery.
[1:48:01] Bob Dobbs: You have created a new school,
[1:48:03] Bob Dobbs: the Nova Scotia School of Communication.
[1:48:06] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:48:07] Cameron McEwen: I don't know if I've created it,
[1:48:08] Cameron McEwen: but I recognize that
[1:48:11] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was very much influenced by his associations.
[1:48:20] Cameron McEwen: with
[1:48:21] Cameron McEwen: Nova Scotia,
[1:48:22] Cameron McEwen: and many of his mentors also had roots in
[1:48:28] Cameron McEwen: Nova Scotia.
[1:48:29] Bob Dobbs: So lay that out.
[1:48:30] Bob Dobbs: Does it begin with Rupert Lodge,
[1:48:34] Bob Dobbs: or the guy who took over the Dalhousie Review,
[1:48:38] Bob Dobbs: or the guy at Acadia?
[1:48:40] Bob Dobbs: Run through those three or four characters.
[1:48:44] Bob Dobbs: in housing.
[1:48:44] Bob Dobbs: Right,
[1:48:44] Cameron McEwen: so in
[1:48:47] Cameron McEwen: Winnipeg a
[1:48:49] Cameron McEwen: teacher of McLuhan in English,
[1:48:53] Cameron McEwen: and a friend,
[1:48:54] Cameron McEwen: a social friend of the McLuhan family was a guy by the name of Watson Kirk Connell.
[1:49:03] Bob Dobbs: And how do you spell that?
[1:49:03] Cameron McEwen: McConnell K,
[1:49:06] Cameron McEwen: I R K,
[1:49:09] Cameron McEwen: C O N N,
[1:49:10] Cameron McEwen: E L L.
[1:49:11] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[1:49:15] Cameron McEwen: So if you're looking them up on the internet,
[1:49:18] Cameron McEwen: I think
[1:49:19] Cameron McEwen: You'll find an incredible array of books of translation that he produced,
[1:49:29] Cameron McEwen: usually in association with people that spoke the language in question.
[1:49:39] Bob Dobbs: Spoke a language in question?
[1:49:41] Bob Dobbs: What?
[1:49:41] Cameron McEwen: Spoke the language in question.
[1:49:44] Cameron McEwen: So,
[1:49:44] Cameron McEwen: for example,
[1:49:45] Cameron McEwen: if you see a book by
[1:49:48] Cameron McEwen: Kirk...
[1:49:49] Cameron McEwen: Connell about
[1:49:52] Cameron McEwen: Icelandic epics,
[1:49:54] Cameron McEwen: then usually he produced that work working with people that spoke
[1:50:01] Cameron McEwen: Icelandic.
[1:50:02] Bob Dobbs: And it's written in English?
[1:50:05] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[1:50:05] Cameron McEwen: exactly.
[1:50:06] Cameron McEwen: It's a translation.
[1:50:08] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:50:08] Bob Dobbs: of
[1:50:09] Bob Dobbs: Icelandic writing.
[1:50:12] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[1:50:12] Cameron McEwen: or poetry,
[1:50:13] Cameron McEwen: usually.
[1:50:14] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[1:50:15] Bob Dobbs: And he translated many different cultures.
[1:50:19] Bob Dobbs: Poetry.
[1:50:20] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.
[1:50:21] Bob Dobbs: And he was in the English department.
[1:50:23] Bob Dobbs: That's what people did back in those days.
[1:50:25] Bob Dobbs: They were translators.
[1:50:27] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:50:27] Cameron McEwen: but he's pretty unique in that respect.
[1:50:33] Bob Dobbs: Why?
[1:50:35] Cameron McEwen: Why?
[1:50:35] Cameron McEwen: Because nobody was looking at Canada as this multicultural mosaic in those years.
[1:50:47] Cameron McEwen: There was largely,
[1:50:48] Cameron McEwen: there was the French and there was the English,
[1:50:51] Cameron McEwen: and the two were completely separate,
[1:50:54] Cameron McEwen: and that's the way it was.
[1:50:56] Cameron McEwen: And Kirkconnell was saying,
[1:50:58] Cameron McEwen: well,
[1:50:58] Cameron McEwen: wait a minute,
[1:50:59] Cameron McEwen: there's many other peoples and languages and poetries in
[1:51:06] Cameron McEwen: Canada than those two,
[1:51:08] Cameron McEwen: and he tried to make them accessible.
[1:51:12] Bob Dobbs: And he did,
[1:51:13] Bob Dobbs: he made about 50 books,
[1:51:14] Bob Dobbs: you told me?
[1:51:15] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:51:16] Cameron McEwen: I don't know.
[1:51:17] Cameron McEwen: exactly how many books,
[1:51:18] Cameron McEwen: but he did a tremendous number in all sorts of different languages.
[1:51:29] Cameron McEwen: And
[1:51:30] Cameron McEwen: I think what was important here was that he was a little bit of a model like McLuhan's mother.
[1:51:39] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan's mother staged one-woman plays.
[1:51:47] Cameron McEwen: where she would play all the different roles.
[1:51:49] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:51:50] Cameron McEwen: And she also did readings of many different poets.
[1:51:55] Cameron McEwen: And so in all of these things,
[1:51:58] Cameron McEwen: she was assuming different identities,
[1:52:01] Cameron McEwen: different voices.
[1:52:04] Cameron McEwen: And Kirkconnell was doing translations from all sorts of different languages.
[1:52:09] Cameron McEwen: So what the two of them...
[1:52:13] Cameron McEwen: were doing was they were giving McLuhan very early on an image of the human mosaic and of the ability to go from one component of the mosaic to another.
[1:52:30] Cameron McEwen: And that sort of leap and that sort of appreciation was what characterized McLuhan from Thank you.
[1:52:43] Cameron McEwen: Start to finish.
[1:52:44] Cameron McEwen: McLoone's appreciation.
[1:52:45] Cameron McEwen: From 1920 to,
[1:52:47] Cameron McEwen: absolutely.
[1:52:49] Cameron McEwen: Okay,
[1:52:49] Bob Dobbs: what years,
[1:52:50] Bob Dobbs: what levels did he,
[1:52:52] Bob Dobbs: was he McLoone's teacher?
[1:52:56] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:52:57] Cameron McEwen: you know,
[1:52:57] Cameron McEwen: I don't know for sure that he was one of his academic teachers.
[1:53:04] Cameron McEwen: I assume he was,
[1:53:06] Cameron McEwen: but when I got in touch with the University of
[1:53:09] Cameron McEwen: Manitoba to learn what...
[1:53:12] Cameron McEwen: courses
[1:53:14] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan took,
[1:53:14] Cameron McEwen: they wouldn't tell me.
[1:53:16] Cameron McEwen: They said it was privileged information.
[1:53:19] Cameron McEwen: Other people have told me that that's bullshit,
[1:53:22] Cameron McEwen: that the guy didn't know what he was talking about.
[1:53:26] Cameron McEwen: But nonetheless,
[1:53:28] Cameron McEwen: I haven't been able to isolate what courses exactly
[1:53:35] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan took.
[1:53:37] Cameron McEwen: What we do know is
[1:53:40] Cameron McEwen: He studied with Rupert Lodge.
[1:53:45] Cameron McEwen: He studied with Henry Wright.
[1:53:48] Cameron McEwen: And we know this from his letters where he mentions them.
[1:53:57] Cameron McEwen: He mentions a guy down the street,
[1:53:59] Cameron McEwen: I forget his name,
[1:54:01] Cameron McEwen: but he took Milton from a professor that lived on the same block as McLuhan.
[1:54:09] Cameron McEwen: And we know from his letters that he was personally acquainted with
[1:54:17] Cameron McEwen: Kirk Connell.
[1:54:18] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:54:19] Bob Dobbs: the letters show the evidence of their influence.
[1:54:23] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[1:54:24] Cameron McEwen: And not only their influence,
[1:54:27] Cameron McEwen: but him being acquainted with them personally.
[1:54:30] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[1:54:31] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[1:54:31] Bob Dobbs: what's Kirk Connell got to do with Nova Scotia?
[1:54:34] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[1:54:34] Cameron McEwen: So Kirk Connell went from the University of Manitoba
[1:54:38] Cameron McEwen: to
[1:54:39] Cameron McEwen: McMaster. He was a professor there of English.
[1:54:44] Cameron McEwen: And from there,
[1:54:47] Cameron McEwen: he became president of Acadia University in
[1:54:51] Cameron McEwen: Wolfville.
[1:54:53] Cameron McEwen: And so I guess Kirkconnell must have been a Baptist because both McMaster and
[1:55:04] Cameron McEwen: Acadia are Baptist institutions.
[1:55:08] Cameron McEwen: Brandon University in Manitoba.
[1:55:14] Cameron McEwen: The way the university system evolved in Canada was that it was very closely associated with religion,
[1:55:25] Cameron McEwen: the Catholic religion especially in Quebec,
[1:55:28] Cameron McEwen: but also in Toronto at St.
[1:55:30] Cameron McEwen: Michael's,
[1:55:31] Cameron McEwen: and then in all of the institutions across
[1:55:35] Cameron McEwen: Canada that
[1:55:36] Cameron McEwen: St. Michael's helped to found,
[1:55:39] Cameron McEwen: like
[1:55:40] Cameron McEwen: Assumption in
[1:55:42] Cameron McEwen: Windsor.
[1:55:44] Cameron McEwen: like
[1:55:46] Cameron McEwen: Sir Thomas More in
[1:55:50] Cameron McEwen: Saskatoon, and
[1:55:53] Cameron McEwen: I forget the name of the college in
[1:55:56] Cameron McEwen: UBC, but they founded one there as well.
[1:56:00] Bob Dobbs: Who were these,
[1:56:01] Bob Dobbs: the Catholics or the Baptists?
[1:56:03] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[1:56:03] Cameron McEwen: these were
[1:56:04] Cameron McEwen: Catholic institutions,
[1:56:06] Cameron McEwen: but the Baptists did the same thing.
[1:56:08] Cameron McEwen: They had institutions all across
[1:56:11] Cameron McEwen: Canada.
[1:56:12] Cameron McEwen: And the Baptist institutions were interesting in that they largely refused to be consolidated.
[1:56:20] Cameron McEwen: So even though
[1:56:21] Cameron McEwen: McMaster was located on the same street as
[1:56:27] Cameron McEwen: University of Toronto in Toronto on Bloor,
[1:56:34] Cameron McEwen: they would not join the University of Toronto like the other religious colleges.
[1:56:41] Cameron McEwen: And that led to McMaster moving away to
[1:56:45] Cameron McEwen: Hamilton, and the old
[1:56:49] Cameron McEwen: McMaster building became the Paul E.
[1:56:53] Cameron McEwen: Sy building.
[1:56:53] Cameron McEwen: That's where
[1:56:54] Cameron McEwen: Harold Innis had his office.
[1:56:56] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:56:57] Bob Dobbs: now what years did he become president at Acadia?
[1:57:04] Cameron McEwen: I'd have to look that up.
[1:57:06] Cameron McEwen: He would have been the president of Acadia.
[1:57:10] Cameron McEwen: for something like 15 years and probably beginning in the early
[1:57:16] Cameron McEwen: 60s until the late 70s would be my guess.
[1:57:20] Bob Dobbs: All right,
[1:57:20] Bob Dobbs: so we have an intimate friend of the McLuhan ending up in Nova Scotia.
[1:57:28] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[1:57:29] Bob Dobbs: And carrying his influence on McLuhan to Nova Scotia.
[1:57:35] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[1:57:37] Bob Dobbs: Rupert Lodge had a connection to...
[1:57:39] Bob Dobbs: Nova Scotia.
[1:57:40] Bob Dobbs: What was that?
[1:57:41] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[1:57:41] Cameron McEwen: So there was the Dalhousie Review was founded in 1921 by a philosophy professor by the name of
[1:57:55] Cameron McEwen: Herbert Stewart.
[1:57:58] Cameron McEwen: And
[1:57:58] Cameron McEwen: Stewart was hired by
[1:58:01] Cameron McEwen: Dalhousie I believe in 1913.
[1:58:04] Cameron McEwen: Could have been 1912.
[1:58:07] Cameron McEwen: And was about
[1:58:09] Cameron McEwen: to leave England for Nova Scotia when his mother got very ill.
[1:58:17] Bob Dobbs: What was he going to do in Nova Scotia?
[1:58:19] Cameron McEwen: He was going to be a professor of philosophy.
[1:58:22] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[1:58:23] Bob Dobbs: but nothing connects him to the
[1:58:28] Bob Dobbs: Dalhousie Review you said started in 1921?
[1:58:32] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[1:58:32] Cameron McEwen: so he did start it.
[1:58:35] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[1:58:35] Bob Dobbs: so he did get to Nova Scotia.
[1:58:38] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[1:58:38] Cameron McEwen: So the very guy that started the Dalhousie Review in 1921 is the guy who couldn't take up his position in 1912 or 1913,
[1:58:52] Cameron McEwen: and the guy that substituted for him for one semester was none other than Rupert Lodge,
[1:58:59] Cameron McEwen: the guy who would be the single biggest influence on McLuhan at the University of Manitoba.
[1:59:08] Bob Dobbs: But Rupert,
[1:59:09] Bob Dobbs: that was one of his earliest academic positions at Dalhousie.
[1:59:14] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[1:59:14] Cameron McEwen: it may even have been his first.
[1:59:17] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[1:59:17] Bob Dobbs: So he had to get into the Nova Scotia vibe to later influence McLuhan.
[1:59:24] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[1:59:24] Cameron McEwen: maybe.
[1:59:25] Cameron McEwen: That's one way of putting a potential there.
[1:59:31] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:59:31] Bob Dobbs: and we may not have said McLuhan mother was born in Nova Scotia.
[1:59:35] Bob Dobbs: That's why we're talking about this.
[1:59:37] Bob Dobbs: That's right.
[1:59:38] Cameron McEwen: And her mother was Marshall,
[1:59:42] Cameron McEwen: after whom he was named.
[1:59:43] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[1:59:44] Bob Dobbs: last name Marshall.
[1:59:45] Bob Dobbs: And
[1:59:47] Bob Dobbs: Marshall, born in 1911 in Edmonton.
[1:59:53] Cameron McEwen: No.
[1:59:55] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[1:59:55] Bob Dobbs: yeah,
[1:59:55] Cameron McEwen: born in Edmonton.
[1:59:56] Cameron McEwen: I'm sorry.
[1:59:57] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[1:59:58] Bob Dobbs: But that's just before
[2:00:00] Bob Dobbs: World War I.
[2:00:01] Bob Dobbs: When there was World War I,
[2:00:02] Bob Dobbs: 1914,
[2:00:04] Bob Dobbs: The McLuhan family moved to Nova Scotia maybe in 1915 because McLuhan father left the military,
[2:00:11] Bob Dobbs: right?
[2:00:14] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[2:00:15] Cameron McEwen: when he went into the military,
[2:00:17] Cameron McEwen: they moved to Nova Scotia.
[2:00:20] Bob Dobbs: While he was away.
[2:00:22] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:00:22] Cameron McEwen: but I think what actually happened is that
[2:00:26] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan mother's father,
[2:00:29] Cameron McEwen: even though he was in his
[2:00:31] Cameron McEwen: 50s, very characteristically...
[2:00:33] Cameron McEwen: Characteristically for him,
[2:00:35] Cameron McEwen: joined the military.
[2:00:37] Cameron McEwen: Amazing.
[2:00:38] Cameron McEwen: And so did his two sons.
[2:00:40] Cameron McEwen: And so
[2:00:43] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan mother's mother was left alone in Winnipeg.
[2:00:51] Cameron McEwen: No,
[2:00:52] Bob Dobbs: in Halifax?
[2:00:53] Bob Dobbs: No,
[2:00:53] Bob Dobbs: no,
[2:00:53] Cameron McEwen: in Winnipeg.
[2:00:54] Cameron McEwen: Right,
[2:00:54] Cameron McEwen: Winnipeg.
[2:00:56] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[2:00:56] Cameron McEwen: So the
[2:00:58] Cameron McEwen: Hall family had...
[2:01:03] Cameron McEwen: moved to Alberta where the Halls and the McLuhan became acquainted and through that
[2:01:12] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan parents got married and had their son in Edmonton.
[2:01:17] Cameron McEwen: But shortly after the
[2:01:21] Cameron McEwen: Hall family,
[2:01:22] Cameron McEwen: except for McLuhan mother,
[2:01:24] Cameron McEwen: moved to
[2:01:25] Cameron McEwen: Winnipeg and started working in farms around Winnipeg.
[2:01:30] Cameron McEwen: But then
[2:01:32] Cameron McEwen: The father and the two sons joined the military and went overseas.
[2:01:38] Cameron McEwen: So the mother was left alone in Winnipeg,
[2:01:41] Cameron McEwen: and
[2:01:41] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan mother,
[2:01:44] Cameron McEwen: who was also left alone because her husband had joined the military,
[2:01:50] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan mother decided to go to her mother in
[2:01:55] Cameron McEwen: Winnipeg so that they all wouldn't be alone.
[2:01:59] Cameron McEwen: And at that point,
[2:02:00] Cameron McEwen: they decided to go to Nova Scotia because that's where their roots were.
[2:02:07] Cameron McEwen: That's where both the mother and
[2:02:11] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan mother still had all kinds of relatives.
[2:02:15] Bob Dobbs: And McLuhan was three or four when he went to Nova Scotia and lived there for a year or so as a young boy.
[2:02:23] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[2:02:23] Bob Dobbs: so that's the Nova Scotia roots of McLuhan himself.
[2:02:27] Bob Dobbs: Now back to Rupert Lodge.
[2:02:29] Bob Dobbs: He comes and teaches at Dow,
[2:02:31] Bob Dobbs: and does he do anything at Dow?
[2:02:36] Cameron McEwen: Not really.
[2:02:37] Cameron McEwen: It's just an amazing thing that of all the people who should have substituted for
[2:02:44] Cameron McEwen: Herbert
[2:02:45] Cameron McEwen: Stewart, it should have been the very guy that would prove so influential on McLuhan later.
[2:02:56] Bob Dobbs: In the 30s.
[2:02:57] Cameron McEwen: Wright Manitoba.
[2:02:58] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[2:02:58] Bob Dobbs: at the University of Wright Manitoba.
[2:03:00] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[2:03:00] Bob Dobbs: the third guy is Father Phelan,
[2:03:03] Bob Dobbs: the mentor or...
[2:03:05] Bob Dobbs: maybe there's a technical term,
[2:03:06] Bob Dobbs: the guy who guided McLuhan to his Catholic conversion,
[2:03:11] Bob Dobbs: right?
[2:03:11] Cameron McEwen: Correct,
[2:03:12] Cameron McEwen: but also did much,
[2:03:14] Cameron McEwen: much more for that.
[2:03:15] Cameron McEwen: He was the guy that got
[2:03:16] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan his job at St.
[2:03:18] Cameron McEwen: Louis University.
[2:03:19] Cameron McEwen: He was the guy that got McLuhan his job at Assumption University.
[2:03:23] Cameron McEwen: He was the guy that got McLuhan his job at St.
[2:03:26] Cameron McEwen: Michael's.
[2:03:27] Cameron McEwen: So
[2:03:28] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was very,
[2:03:30] Cameron McEwen: very indebted to...
[2:03:34] Cameron McEwen: Father Phelan.
[2:03:35] Bob Dobbs: He's a major influence,
[2:03:37] Bob Dobbs: maybe the most major.
[2:03:39] Bob Dobbs: And yet,
[2:03:40] Bob Dobbs: he...
[2:03:42] Cameron McEwen: One of the most influential people in his life,
[2:03:44] Cameron McEwen: for sure.
[2:03:44] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:03:45] Bob Dobbs: And he grew up in Halifax,
[2:03:47] Bob Dobbs: Nova Scotia,
[2:03:48] Bob Dobbs: as a...
[2:03:49] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[2:03:49] Bob Dobbs: In a French family.
[2:03:51] Cameron McEwen: Right.
[2:03:52] Cameron McEwen: And went to seminary there,
[2:03:54] Cameron McEwen: became a professor at
[2:03:56] Cameron McEwen: St. Mary's.
[2:03:58] Bob Dobbs: The Catholic University.
[2:03:59] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[2:04:00] Cameron McEwen: And a very large Catholic...
[2:04:03] Cameron McEwen: I think it was much bigger than
[2:04:05] Cameron McEwen: Dalhousie back then,
[2:04:07] Cameron McEwen: and I believe it still is.
[2:04:12] Cameron McEwen: So he becomes a professor,
[2:04:16] Cameron McEwen: maybe even during the war,
[2:04:17] Cameron McEwen: but certainly after the war,
[2:04:19] Cameron McEwen: he was a professor at St.
[2:04:20] Cameron McEwen: Mary's,
[2:04:21] Cameron McEwen: and there were probably only a handful of philosophers in Halifax at the time,
[2:04:29] Cameron McEwen: and one of them was Herbert Leslie Stewart.
[2:04:32] Cameron McEwen: who was going to establish the Dalhousie Review,
[2:04:37] Cameron McEwen: and one was
[2:04:39] Cameron McEwen: Father Phelan.
[2:04:41] Cameron McEwen: So
[2:04:42] Cameron McEwen: Father Phelan,
[2:04:44] Cameron McEwen: when he was the philosophy professor at St.
[2:04:47] Cameron McEwen: Mary's,
[2:04:48] Cameron McEwen: was also the editor of a Catholic weekly.
[2:04:52] Cameron McEwen: I think it was called The Cross,
[2:04:53] Cameron McEwen: but I'm not sure of that.
[2:04:54] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:04:56] Cameron McEwen: But
[2:04:59] Cameron McEwen: Phelan and Stewart were friends.
[2:05:02] Cameron McEwen: And I believe it was Phelan who was able to give
[2:05:08] Cameron McEwen: Stewart the technical information that he needed to start a review.
[2:05:14] Cameron McEwen: So he needed to know,
[2:05:15] Cameron McEwen: you know,
[2:05:16] Cameron McEwen: where do you get the paper?
[2:05:18] Cameron McEwen: How do you do the typesetting?
[2:05:20] Cameron McEwen: Who does the printing?
[2:05:22] Cameron McEwen: Who does the distribution?
[2:05:25] Cameron McEwen: What are the costs?
[2:05:26] Cameron McEwen: All of this sort of stuff.
[2:05:28] Cameron McEwen: So Phelan was able to give him that.
[2:05:31] Cameron McEwen: kind of information.
[2:05:33] Cameron McEwen: And at the same time,
[2:05:34] Cameron McEwen: Stewart was giving information to Phelan because Stuart's specialty was philosophical psychology.
[2:05:42] Cameron McEwen: And this would become
[2:05:44] Cameron McEwen: Phelan's specialty as well.
[2:05:47] Cameron McEwen: He would study it.
[2:05:49] Cameron McEwen: He got a fellowship to study it in Europe at Louvain and other famous colleges in Europe where Uh,
[2:05:59] Cameron McEwen: He was able to study in French.
[2:06:04] Cameron McEwen: And so when he was hired at St.
[2:06:08] Cameron McEwen: Michael's by Henry Carr,
[2:06:11] Cameron McEwen: I believe,
[2:06:13] Cameron McEwen: he was brought to St.
[2:06:16] Cameron McEwen: Michael's as one of the leading
[2:06:20] Cameron McEwen: Catholic philosophers in Canada.
[2:06:26] Cameron McEwen: Phelan was widely published.
[2:06:29] Cameron McEwen: in the top journals,
[2:06:31] Cameron McEwen: not just Catholic journals,
[2:06:32] Cameron McEwen: top philosophy journals,
[2:06:35] Cameron McEwen: and was recognized as an expert in his field,
[2:06:40] Cameron McEwen: but was also...
[2:06:42] Cameron McEwen: an expert in what might be called
[2:06:48] Cameron McEwen: Catholic communication.
[2:06:51] Cameron McEwen: He recognized great minds.
[2:06:55] Cameron McEwen: He recognized the potential of McLuhan.
[2:06:57] Cameron McEwen: He recognized the potential of
[2:07:00] Cameron McEwen: Hugh Kenner.
[2:07:02] Cameron McEwen: And both of them converted to Catholicism.
[2:07:07] Cameron McEwen: Both of them saw that the exercise of mind
[2:07:11] Cameron McEwen: was not somehow separated from an appreciation of religion.
[2:07:18] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:07:19] Cameron McEwen: And
[2:07:20] Cameron McEwen: Phelan was able to sort of give that sense of things to people he mentored.
[2:07:29] Bob Dobbs: As a professor of psychological or philosophical psychology or psychological philosophy?
[2:07:36] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:07:37] Cameron McEwen: both,
[2:07:37] Cameron McEwen: I guess.
[2:07:38] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:07:38] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[2:07:40] Bob Dobbs: the reason we're...
[2:07:42] Bob Dobbs: One of the subplots is that McLuhan first published,
[2:07:46] Bob Dobbs: after his student days at the University of Wright Manitoba,
[2:07:49] Bob Dobbs: I think it is his first article,
[2:07:51] Bob Dobbs: is in 1936 at the Dalhousie Review in Halifax.
[2:07:54] Bob Dobbs: So McLuhan academic career starts in Halifax.
[2:07:59] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[2:08:00] Cameron McEwen: And he joins,
[2:08:02] Cameron McEwen: as a person publishing in the
[2:08:05] Cameron McEwen: Dalhousie Review,
[2:08:07] Cameron McEwen: he joined
[2:08:08] Cameron McEwen: Kirkconnell,
[2:08:09] Cameron McEwen: Lodge,
[2:08:11] Cameron McEwen: and Phelan,
[2:08:12] Cameron McEwen: who we've just been talking about.
[2:08:16] Cameron McEwen: And Stewart was their editor.
[2:08:18] Cameron McEwen: So it's like we're putting together a bouquet of thinkers that are planted in the...
[2:08:30] Bob Dobbs: They surround McLuhan.
[2:08:32] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[2:08:32] Bob Dobbs: so Phelan published at the Dalhousie Review.
[2:08:36] Bob Dobbs: Rupert Lodge published there.
[2:08:38] Cameron McEwen: Yes.
[2:08:39] Cameron McEwen: And he published there on the philosophy of education,
[2:08:42] Cameron McEwen: which was a paper that
[2:08:45] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan helped Lodge put together.
[2:08:49] Cameron McEwen: And McLuhan may have played a role in getting it published at the Dalhousie Review.
[2:08:56] Cameron McEwen: And that may have been one of the ways that he came to publish his article there.
[2:09:02] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:09:02] Bob Dobbs: And you say after the failure of the communication seminar in 1955,
[2:09:08] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan sort of decided to move in by the end of the
[2:09:11] Bob Dobbs: 50s into a role as a philosopher of education.
[2:09:18] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan had been known as a philosopher of education for a long time.
[2:09:25] Cameron McEwen: So when
[2:09:26] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan arrived at the University of Toronto in 1946,
[2:09:33] Cameron McEwen: that was the last year that Eric
[2:09:35] Cameron McEwen: Havelock was there.
[2:09:37] Cameron McEwen: Although Havelock was often at Harvard that year lecturing.
[2:09:41] Cameron McEwen: But
[2:09:41] Cameron McEwen: Havelock was,
[2:09:43] Cameron McEwen: his family was still in Toronto.
[2:09:45] Cameron McEwen: And Havelock was still working at the
[2:09:50] Cameron McEwen: University of
[2:09:52] Cameron McEwen: Toronto at the same time that he was working at Harvard.
[2:09:55] Cameron McEwen: And Havelock was known at that time as a historian and philosopher of education.
[2:10:04] Cameron McEwen: So I think that
[2:10:06] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan...
[2:10:07] Cameron McEwen: because he was known as a philosopher of education from his thesis,
[2:10:13] Cameron McEwen: was brought together with Havelock in 1946 because of their mutual specialties.
[2:10:21] Cameron McEwen: And it was through Havelock that McLuhan became interested in the Epyllion form.
[2:10:28] Bob Dobbs: The
[2:10:29] Bob Dobbs: Epyllion. Epyllion.
[2:10:30] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[2:10:31] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[2:10:32] Cameron McEwen: Very,
[2:10:32] Cameron McEwen: very important for
[2:10:34] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan life.
[2:10:36] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:10:37] Bob Dobbs: He used the Epyllion method.
[2:10:39] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[2:10:40] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[2:10:41] Cameron McEwen: So then as
[2:10:47] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was in the
[2:10:50] Cameron McEwen: 1950s, as you just pointed out,
[2:10:53] Cameron McEwen: he sort of took up the mantle that he had put aside in 1946 as a...
[2:11:04] Cameron McEwen: philosopher of education or a theoretician of education and began to both publish in education and to go to an astonishing number
[2:11:20] Cameron McEwen: of conventions and meetings where he spoke on education.
[2:11:27] Cameron McEwen: The real hero in the background here is his wife,
[2:11:33] Cameron McEwen: Corinne.
[2:11:34] Cameron McEwen: Because imagine at this time she had six children.
[2:11:40] Cameron McEwen: that she was dealing with.
[2:11:43] Cameron McEwen: Eric was still at home.
[2:11:46] Cameron McEwen: He's maybe 15,
[2:11:48] Cameron McEwen: 16.
[2:11:49] Cameron McEwen: And then the other five kids.
[2:11:52] Cameron McEwen: And so McLuhan is traveling all over the continent,
[2:11:56] Cameron McEwen: speaking at education conferences,
[2:11:58] Cameron McEwen: trying to McNamee for himself.
[2:12:01] Cameron McEwen: And poor Corinne is home alone,
[2:12:04] Cameron McEwen: dealing with all of problems to the kids.
[2:12:08] Cameron McEwen: dealing with feeding them,
[2:12:10] Cameron McEwen: clothing them,
[2:12:11] Cameron McEwen: all this sort of stuff.
[2:12:15] Cameron McEwen: She's a real background hero in all this.
[2:12:18] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[2:12:19] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[2:12:20] Bob Dobbs: so we're talking about Phelan comes out of Halifax.
[2:12:28] Cameron McEwen: Kirkconnell.
[2:12:29] Bob Dobbs: Kirkconnell ends up in
[2:12:32] Bob Dobbs: Nova Scotia.
[2:12:33] Bob Dobbs: Yep.
[2:12:34] Bob Dobbs: Rupert Lodge is very involved with a magazine,
[2:12:38] Bob Dobbs: as well as teaching there,
[2:12:39] Bob Dobbs: a literary review,
[2:12:41] Bob Dobbs: the Dalhousie Review.
[2:12:43] Bob Dobbs: And let's see,
[2:12:45] Bob Dobbs: who else do we have?
[2:12:49] Bob Dobbs: Kirk Connell,
[2:12:50] Bob Dobbs: Phelan,
[2:12:51] Bob Dobbs: and Lodge.
[2:12:52] Bob Dobbs: And then the found steward who created the Dalhousie Review,
[2:12:57] Bob Dobbs: he's in Nova Scotia.
[2:12:59] Bob Dobbs: But is there something else?
[2:13:00] Bob Dobbs: Does he have a connection to McLuhan other than publishing his article?
[2:13:04] Bob Dobbs: his first essay.
[2:13:07] Cameron McEwen: No other things.
[2:13:08] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[2:13:09] Cameron McEwen: not only published his first essay,
[2:13:11] Cameron McEwen: but then later,
[2:13:14] Cameron McEwen: almost nobody knows that
[2:13:16] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan published again in the
[2:13:19] Cameron McEwen: Dalhousie Review.
[2:13:21] Cameron McEwen: While Stewart was still the editor,
[2:13:24] Cameron McEwen: I forget exactly the year,
[2:13:26] Cameron McEwen: but it was a review of a new edition of
[2:13:31] Cameron McEwen: Maritain Art and
[2:13:33] Cameron McEwen: scholasticism,
[2:13:35] Cameron McEwen: we could look that up.
[2:13:37] Cameron McEwen: But
[2:13:38] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan obviously stayed in touch with the Dalhousie Review so that he published in it at very different phases in his career.
[2:13:50] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:13:50] Bob Dobbs: And McLuhan spoke several times in Nova Scotia.
[2:13:53] Bob Dobbs: I know that.
[2:13:54] Bob Dobbs: I know he did it.
[2:13:55] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[2:13:55] Cameron McEwen: absolutely.
[2:13:56] Cameron McEwen: And his mother.
[2:13:57] Cameron McEwen: His mother put on her plays there.
[2:14:01] Bob Dobbs: That's right.
[2:14:01] Bob Dobbs: There are newspaper articles,
[2:14:03] Bob Dobbs: Halifax paper reviews of her.
[2:14:05] Bob Dobbs: But here's the amazing thing that you discovered is that in that issue in 1936 where McLuhan was first published was also an article by Harold Innis.
[2:14:14] Bob Dobbs: Talk about that.
[2:14:16] Cameron McEwen: Yes.
[2:14:17] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[2:14:20] Cameron McEwen: it's often thought partly because McLuhan told the story in a very distorted way.
[2:14:26] Cameron McEwen: But most books on McLuhan say that...
[2:14:30] Cameron McEwen: He got to know
[2:14:33] Cameron McEwen: Harold Ennis in 1951,
[2:14:38] Cameron McEwen: which is when
[2:14:40] Cameron McEwen: Ennis was already very sick and he would die the next year.
[2:14:44] Cameron McEwen: That's nonsense.
[2:14:46] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan got to know
[2:14:49] Cameron McEwen: Harold Ennis personally at the latest in 1947,
[2:14:54] Cameron McEwen: but maybe even in 1946 already,
[2:14:57] Cameron McEwen: and he got to know
[2:14:59] Cameron McEwen: Ennis' work.
[2:15:00] Cameron McEwen: already in 1936,
[2:15:03] Cameron McEwen: because when
[2:15:05] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan first article was published in the
[2:15:09] Cameron McEwen: Dalhousie Review,
[2:15:11] Cameron McEwen: Innis had a very important article on that same issue,
[2:15:15] Cameron McEwen: and there's just no way that
[2:15:18] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan would not have read that.
[2:15:20] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:15:22] Bob Dobbs: And now Innis,
[2:15:27] Bob Dobbs: he's in Toronto in the late 30s,
[2:15:28] Bob Dobbs: early 40s.
[2:15:30] Bob Dobbs: And Northrop Frye meets
[2:15:33] Bob Dobbs: Innis before McLuhan...
[2:15:36] Bob Dobbs: No,
[2:15:36] Bob Dobbs: Northrop Frye meets Wyndham Lewis.
[2:15:39] Bob Dobbs: I don't know if Innis ever met Wyndham Lewis,
[2:15:41] Bob Dobbs: but Northrop Frye met Lewis before McLuhan did in 1943.
[2:15:47] Bob Dobbs: But what happened is,
[2:15:48] Bob Dobbs: if you read a recent biography of
[2:15:52] Bob Dobbs: Innis, he was greatly influenced by Wyndham Lewis,
[2:15:56] Bob Dobbs: like McLuhan,
[2:15:58] Bob Dobbs: in the
[2:15:58] Bob Dobbs: 40s.
[2:16:00] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:16:01] Cameron McEwen: personally,
[2:16:01] Cameron McEwen: I don't believe that.
[2:16:04] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[2:16:04] Bob Dobbs: it's in the biography.
[2:16:05] Bob Dobbs: The author...
[2:16:08] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:16:09] Cameron McEwen: well,
[2:16:10] Cameron McEwen: not everything in all biographies is accurate.
[2:16:17] Cameron McEwen: It's true that
[2:16:18] Cameron McEwen: Lewis probably read
[2:16:21] Cameron McEwen: Time and Western Man.
[2:16:23] Bob Dobbs: No,
[2:16:24] Bob Dobbs: Innis read
[2:16:25] Bob Dobbs: Time and Western Man.
[2:16:26] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[2:16:26] Cameron McEwen: I'm sorry,
[2:16:26] Cameron McEwen: who did I say?
[2:16:27] Bob Dobbs: Lewis.
[2:16:28] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[2:16:29] Cameron McEwen: sorry.
[2:16:29] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:16:30] Cameron McEwen: well,
[2:16:30] Cameron McEwen: Lewis did too.
[2:16:31] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[2:16:35] Cameron McEwen: So we know from quotations that Innis read
[2:16:41] Cameron McEwen: Time and Western Man and The Art of Being Ruled.
[2:16:45] Cameron McEwen: And almost certainly he would have read those on the recommendation of McLuhan.
[2:16:52] Cameron McEwen: Probably through Easterbrook,
[2:16:56] Cameron McEwen: Innis had read...
[2:16:58] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan 1944 article on Lewis where he liberally quotes those two books.
[2:17:08] Bob Dobbs: Right,
[2:17:08] Bob Dobbs: and we're talking about
[2:17:11] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan boyhood friend who ends up being the top student of Innis at the University of Toronto,
[2:17:18] Bob Dobbs: I guess in the
[2:17:19] Bob Dobbs: 30s or after the war,
[2:17:21] Bob Dobbs: 40s?
[2:17:22] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:17:22] Cameron McEwen: no,
[2:17:23] Cameron McEwen: Easterbrook was a very close friend of McLuhan.
[2:17:28] Cameron McEwen: The two of them went to Europe together in
[2:17:31] Cameron McEwen: 1932. And then after they both graduated,
[2:17:38] Cameron McEwen: Easterbrook went to study in Toronto when
[2:17:41] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan went to Cambridge.
[2:17:43] Cameron McEwen: And
[2:17:44] Cameron McEwen: Easterbrook was in political economy and studied under
[2:17:49] Cameron McEwen: Innis. And when he wrote his thesis in
[2:17:55] Cameron McEwen: 1936...
[2:17:56] Cameron McEwen: Innis arranged for it to be published by the University of Toronto Press and wrote a forward to it.
[2:18:03] Cameron McEwen: So already in the middle
[2:18:05] Cameron McEwen: 30s, Innis and Easterbrook were quite close.
[2:18:09] Cameron McEwen: Then when Easterbrook came back to the University of Toronto in 1947,
[2:18:16] Cameron McEwen: he started working again quite closely with
[2:18:21] Cameron McEwen: Innis. by 1950.
[2:18:24] Cameron McEwen: He was one of
[2:18:25] Cameron McEwen: Ennis's closest friends.
[2:18:28] Cameron McEwen: And then from
[2:18:31] Cameron McEwen: 50 to 52,
[2:18:32] Cameron McEwen: when Ennis died,
[2:18:36] Cameron McEwen: Easterbrook was almost a personal secretary,
[2:18:42] Cameron McEwen: spent a lot of time with
[2:18:45] Cameron McEwen: Ennis when Ennis was bedridden,
[2:18:49] Cameron McEwen: helped
[2:18:50] Cameron McEwen: Ennis finalize.
[2:18:53] Cameron McEwen: his last essays and then later went on to a distinguished career in the same department where Ennis had been chair,
[2:19:05] Cameron McEwen: later Easterbrook was chair.
[2:19:09] Bob Dobbs: Right,
[2:19:09] Bob Dobbs: now
[2:19:10] Bob Dobbs: Easterbrook was not at the University of Toronto during World War II.
[2:19:16] Cameron McEwen: No,
[2:19:17] Cameron McEwen: he was at the University of Brandon.
[2:19:21] Cameron McEwen: Why he wasn't in the service,
[2:19:23] Cameron McEwen: I don't know.
[2:19:24] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:19:24] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[2:19:24] Bob Dobbs: what's interesting,
[2:19:26] Bob Dobbs: here's
[2:19:28] Bob Dobbs: Easterbrook, a student of Innis in the late
[2:19:30] Bob Dobbs: 30s, approximately,
[2:19:32] Bob Dobbs: even 1936.
[2:19:35] Bob Dobbs: Innis is in the Dalhousie Review.
[2:19:37] Bob Dobbs: We assume that McLuhan is letter writing,
[2:19:40] Bob Dobbs: corresponding,
[2:19:41] Bob Dobbs: maybe we could check in the archives,
[2:19:43] Bob Dobbs: corresponding with Easterbrook Innis late 30s,
[2:19:48] Bob Dobbs: 40s period.
[2:19:49] Bob Dobbs: He would hear about Innis,
[2:19:50] Bob Dobbs: I'm sure.
[2:19:52] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[2:19:52] Cameron McEwen: absolutely.
[2:19:53] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.
[2:19:58] Bob Dobbs: You know,
[2:19:59] Bob Dobbs: during the war.
[2:20:02] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[2:20:02] Cameron McEwen: there's no question about that.
[2:20:06] Bob Dobbs: And you're saying that Innis was introduced to McLuhan by Easterbrook in 47,
[2:20:11] Bob Dobbs: maybe.
[2:20:12] Cameron McEwen: That's personally.
[2:20:13] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[2:20:14] Cameron McEwen: But
[2:20:15] Cameron McEwen: I maintain that he knew of...
[2:20:18] Cameron McEwen: Ennis's work at the latest by 1936 when that article by Ennis appeared in the Dalhousie Review in the same issue as McLuhan first essay.
[2:20:31] Cameron McEwen: But
[2:20:32] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was very interested in
[2:20:35] Cameron McEwen: Canadian history and he may well have read
[2:20:42] Cameron McEwen: Ennis's fur trade book.
[2:20:45] Cameron McEwen: long before he came to the University of Toronto.
[2:20:48] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[2:20:50] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[2:20:53] Bob Dobbs: A Wyndham Lewis scholar in England,
[2:20:56] Bob Dobbs: Alan Mutton,
[2:20:57] Bob Dobbs: discovered that George Orwell was very influenced by Lewis,
[2:21:03] Bob Dobbs: leading to his 1984 book.
[2:21:08] Bob Dobbs: Orwell,
[2:21:08] Bob Dobbs: there's statements by him where he's puzzled and thinking a lot about Lewis.
[2:21:13] Bob Dobbs: He's a little disappointed.
[2:21:14] Bob Dobbs: about what Lewis is noticing about media.
[2:21:17] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:21:19] Cameron McEwen: that makes great sense.
[2:21:21] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[2:21:21] Bob Dobbs: So Lewis had this kind of influence in a lot of scenes.
[2:21:25] Bob Dobbs: And I'm saying,
[2:21:25] Bob Dobbs: you don't go with me,
[2:21:27] Bob Dobbs: but I'm saying he influenced two major communication scholars who are important for Innis in Canadian history.
[2:21:36] Bob Dobbs: And Innis was internationally recognized.
[2:21:39] Bob Dobbs: He was on the board of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions.
[2:21:43] Bob Dobbs: I think that's what it was.
[2:21:45] Bob Dobbs: And then McLuhan went on to be famous.
[2:21:47] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:21:49] Bob Dobbs: Lewis is lurking Innis,
[2:21:51] Bob Dobbs: and Lewis was born,
[2:21:54] Bob Dobbs: guess where he was born?
[2:21:56] Cameron McEwen: Amherst.
[2:21:57] Bob Dobbs: In Nova Scotia.
[2:22:00] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:22:00] Cameron McEwen: in a boat just off of Amherst,
[2:22:03] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[2:22:03] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[2:22:04] Bob Dobbs: there's the Bay of Fundy that,
[2:22:06] Bob Dobbs: you know,
[2:22:06] Bob Dobbs: Nova Scotia is a peninsula,
[2:22:08] Bob Dobbs: so the northern part of the peninsula that on the other side is New Brunswick,
[2:22:12] Bob Dobbs: you go down the bay towards Newfoundland,
[2:22:15] Bob Dobbs: and you'll come to the Isthmus,
[2:22:17] Bob Dobbs: the little connection.
[2:22:19] Bob Dobbs: Is that what they call it?
[2:22:20] Bob Dobbs: The Isthmus is the connection of the peninsula with New Brunswick.
[2:22:23] Bob Dobbs: That's where Amherst is.
[2:22:25] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[2:22:26] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[2:22:27] Cameron McEwen: That's where Lewis was born.
[2:22:28] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[2:22:29] Bob Dobbs: And someone did an article on early Canadian media theorists,
[2:22:34] Bob Dobbs: and Lewis was included.
[2:22:36] Bob Dobbs: And I think in 1939,
[2:22:39] Bob Dobbs: Canada built a communications tower that maybe went to Europe.
[2:22:44] Bob Dobbs: It was an important major communications tower right there in Amherst where Lewis was born.
[2:22:51] Cameron McEwen: It could be.
[2:22:52] Cameron McEwen: In the
[2:22:55] Cameron McEwen: 20s and
[2:22:56] Cameron McEwen: 30s, people were putting cables underneath the
[2:23:04] Cameron McEwen: Atlantic Ocean.
[2:23:05] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[2:23:05] Cameron McEwen: And those cables were going either from
[2:23:09] Cameron McEwen: Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island.
[2:23:12] Cameron McEwen: Newfoundland at that time wasn't part of Canada.
[2:23:15] Bob Dobbs: But Marconi did,
[2:23:18] Bob Dobbs: I think he did his first experiment.
[2:23:19] Bob Dobbs: experiment out of Cape Breton,
[2:23:21] Bob Dobbs: which is part of Nova Scotia,
[2:23:22] Bob Dobbs: and then maybe he went to Newfoundland.
[2:23:23] Bob Dobbs: I'm not sure,
[2:23:24] Bob Dobbs: but he definitely did something in the Nova Scotia region.
[2:23:28] Bob Dobbs: So the wireless comes in with Marconi out of Nova Scotia,
[2:23:33] Bob Dobbs: and Lewis is there to reap the benefits a few decades later where he's born.
[2:23:38] Bob Dobbs: So,
[2:23:38] Bob Dobbs: wow,
[2:23:38] Bob Dobbs: this is pretty,
[2:23:39] Bob Dobbs: the global village,
[2:23:40] Bob Dobbs: the global ESP comes out of Nova Scotia.
[2:23:44] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[2:23:45] Cameron McEwen: maybe.
[2:23:46] Cameron McEwen: I mean,
[2:23:46] Bob Dobbs: telegraphically,
[2:23:47] Bob Dobbs: wirelessly.
[2:23:50] Bob Dobbs: What?
[2:23:51] Cameron McEwen: A construction can be made along those lines.
[2:23:54] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[2:23:54] Bob Dobbs: the wireless is ESP,
[2:23:56] Bob Dobbs: no connections.
[2:23:58] Bob Dobbs: So we've done
[2:24:01] Bob Dobbs: Kirkconnell,
[2:24:02] Bob Dobbs: Phelan,
[2:24:03] Bob Dobbs: Stewart,
[2:24:04] Bob Dobbs: Lodge,
[2:24:07] Bob Dobbs: Lewis,
[2:24:08] Bob Dobbs: Innis,
[2:24:09] Bob Dobbs: Dalhousie, the roots of McLuhan family.
[2:24:13] Bob Dobbs: Did we leave anybody out?
[2:24:16] Cameron McEwen: Not that I can think of,
[2:24:17] Cameron McEwen: but we may find somebody later on.
[2:24:19] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[2:24:20] Bob Dobbs: so here's what happened.
[2:24:21] Bob Dobbs: A major McLuhan...
[2:24:24] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[2:24:25] Cameron McEwen: we may have left out
[2:24:27] Cameron McEwen: Bob Dobbs.
[2:24:28] Bob Dobbs: No,
[2:24:28] Bob Dobbs: that's what I'm coming into.
[2:24:29] Bob Dobbs: A major McLuhan,
[2:24:32] Bob Dobbs: a professor of English at St.
[2:24:34] Bob Dobbs: of X,
[2:24:34] Bob Dobbs: St.
[2:24:34] Bob Dobbs: Francis Xavier,
[2:24:38] Bob Dobbs: a Catholic university in Antigonish,
[2:24:43] Bob Dobbs: Nova Scotia,
[2:24:44] Bob Dobbs: he started the Antigonish Review.
[2:24:47] Bob Dobbs: popularized McLuhan a great deal through that magazine,
[2:24:51] Bob Dobbs: was a great friend of McLuhan,
[2:24:53] Bob Dobbs: always visited Toronto at least once a year,
[2:24:56] Bob Dobbs: and published a book on McLuhan.
[2:24:58] Bob Dobbs: So
[2:24:59] Bob Dobbs: Sanderson is the next generation of McLuhan,
[2:25:02] Bob Dobbs: so to speak.
[2:25:03] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[2:25:04] Cameron McEwen: And I forget the name of the father,
[2:25:06] Cameron McEwen: the Jesuit father,
[2:25:08] Cameron McEwen: that was a big influence on George.
[2:25:12] Cameron McEwen: What,
[2:25:12] Cameron McEwen: McSweeney?
[2:25:13] Bob Dobbs: McSweeney?
[2:25:14] Bob Dobbs: Yes,
[2:25:14] Cameron McEwen: you're right.
[2:25:15] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.
[2:25:16] Cameron McEwen: Good,
[2:25:16] Cameron McEwen: good.
[2:25:17] Cameron McEwen: recall,
[2:25:17] Cameron McEwen: Bob.
[2:25:18] Cameron McEwen: So I think it was him,
[2:25:19] Cameron McEwen: actually,
[2:25:20] Cameron McEwen: that started the Antigonish Review,
[2:25:22] Cameron McEwen: and then George took it over from him.
[2:25:25] Cameron McEwen: But
[2:25:26] Cameron McEwen: McSweeney was also interested in
[2:25:30] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan. Right.
[2:25:32] Bob Dobbs: It probably drew
[2:25:33] Bob Dobbs: George's attention to him.
[2:25:35] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:25:35] Cameron McEwen: exactly.
[2:25:36] Bob Dobbs: Wasn't it McSween,
[2:25:40] Bob Dobbs: not McSweeney?
[2:25:41] Bob Dobbs: I think it's M-A-C
[2:25:44] Bob Dobbs: S-W-E-E-N or something.
[2:25:47] Bob Dobbs: No?
[2:25:48] Cameron McEwen: I don't know the answer to that.
[2:25:50] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[2:25:50] Bob Dobbs: so anybody who's interested,
[2:25:51] Bob Dobbs: it's McSween or McSweeney.
[2:25:54] Bob Dobbs: And then the world-renowned McLuhan scholar Bob Dobbs has spent many years in Halifax and started...
[2:26:07] Bob Dobbs: going to Toronto in the late
[2:26:09] Bob Dobbs: 60s and meeting McLuhan from Nova Scotia and then eventually became McLuhan archivist.
[2:26:15] Bob Dobbs: An ambivalent position,
[2:26:17] Bob Dobbs: wasn't paid,
[2:26:18] Bob Dobbs: but turned out to be important for the archives that I organized so they could be sold to
[2:26:24] Bob Dobbs: Ottawa.
[2:26:26] Bob Dobbs: So another part of the Halifax school.
[2:26:29] Bob Dobbs: Maybe,
[2:26:30] Bob Dobbs: did anybody come after me?
[2:26:34] Bob Dobbs: If anybody came after me,
[2:26:35] Bob Dobbs: I brought them in.
[2:26:37] Cameron McEwen: Terrence Gordon.
[2:26:38] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[2:26:39] Bob Dobbs: Terrence Gordon,
[2:26:40] Bob Dobbs: yes.
[2:26:41] Bob Dobbs: He missed my grasp,
[2:26:42] Bob Dobbs: but guess what?
[2:26:43] Bob Dobbs: I knew all about his writing of the biography,
[2:26:47] Bob Dobbs: the second biography of McLuhan,
[2:26:49] Bob Dobbs: because a close friend of mine who visited the whole McLuhan scene with me,
[2:26:55] Bob Dobbs: Greg Skinner,
[2:26:56] Bob Dobbs: who had a job at Dalhousie,
[2:26:58] Bob Dobbs: he wasn't a professor,
[2:26:59] Bob Dobbs: but he was a great friend of Terry,
[2:27:01] Bob Dobbs: and I would get regular reports from Greg's conversations with Terry about how...
[2:27:06] Bob Dobbs: the biography was going or coming along.
[2:27:09] Cameron McEwen: There you go.
[2:27:10] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:27:10] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[2:27:11] Bob Dobbs: So let me just think of a...
[2:27:14] Bob Dobbs: So
[2:27:15] Bob Dobbs: Terrence Gordon...
[2:27:18] Cameron McEwen: I don't want to put you off,
[2:27:19] Cameron McEwen: but just to go back to the
[2:27:21] Cameron McEwen: Annie Ganesh review,
[2:27:22] Cameron McEwen: you were correct that it was McSween.
[2:27:26] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[2:27:27] Bob Dobbs: I used to read his poetry.
[2:27:29] Bob Dobbs: I mean,
[2:27:29] Bob Dobbs: I remember him.
[2:27:31] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:27:31] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[2:27:31] Cameron McEwen: And I was right that he established the review.
[2:27:35] Cameron McEwen: And then he was succeeded as the editor-in-chief by George.
[2:27:39] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:27:41] Bob Dobbs: Let's see.
[2:27:44] Bob Dobbs: I didn't meet too many McLuhan in Halifax.
[2:27:50] Bob Dobbs: If there were any of the population,
[2:27:53] Bob Dobbs: I wasn't in academia.
[2:27:55] Bob Dobbs: I introduced them to McLuhan.
[2:27:57] Bob Dobbs: So I was the main propagandist for McLuhan.
[2:28:00] Bob Dobbs: It was known for that in
[2:28:02] Bob Dobbs: Halifax in the 60s and 70s.
[2:28:04] Bob Dobbs: But then I moved to Toronto in 1977 and then started spending a lot more time with McLuhan.
[2:28:11] Bob Dobbs: But
[2:28:12] Bob Dobbs: I think I had one more sentence there.
[2:28:15] Cameron McEwen: You had been traveling up to Toronto before that,
[2:28:19] Cameron McEwen: right?
[2:28:19] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:28:19] Cameron McEwen: since the late 60s.
[2:28:20] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[2:28:22] Bob Dobbs: As a matter of fact,
[2:28:22] Bob Dobbs: I...
[2:28:22] Cameron McEwen: So you had already met lots of the McLuhan circle.
[2:28:27] Bob Dobbs: That's right.
[2:28:27] Cameron McEwen: Before 1977.
[2:28:29] Bob Dobbs: I was able to drop in and I started going to the Monday night seminars.
[2:28:34] Bob Dobbs: and I probably attend the most number of seminars because Eric was away often.
[2:28:40] Bob Dobbs: De Kerckhove was in and out.
[2:28:41] Bob Dobbs: Logan didn't come in until 74,
[2:28:44] Bob Dobbs: 75 or so.
[2:28:46] Bob Dobbs: I met Logan in 75 with McLuhan.
[2:28:49] Bob Dobbs: So
[2:28:50] Bob Dobbs: Barry Nevitt certainly attended more than me,
[2:28:55] Bob Dobbs: but he wasn't an audience.
[2:28:57] Bob Dobbs: He was part of the performers.
[2:28:58] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?
[2:28:59] Bob Dobbs: He was part of the staff in a way.
[2:29:02] Bob Dobbs: Let's see.
[2:29:03] Bob Dobbs: see,
[2:29:03] Bob Dobbs: I thought I had another little fact there.
[2:29:08] Bob Dobbs: The moving to Toronto really,
[2:29:12] Bob Dobbs: I was able to go around to all the libraries and archives and get all the articles.
[2:29:17] Bob Dobbs: And then
[2:29:19] Bob Dobbs: George Thompson found out about that and then they named me
[2:29:23] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan Archivist,
[2:29:24] Bob Dobbs: but I didn't find that out until after Marshall died.
[2:29:27] Bob Dobbs: But here is George Thompson who succeeded
[2:29:31] Bob Dobbs: Marshall's brother as
[2:29:32] Bob Dobbs: the first aide to McLuhan in the Cochos,
[2:29:39] Bob Dobbs: and he started about 72 or so,
[2:29:42] Bob Dobbs: he ended his life visiting
[2:29:46] Bob Dobbs: George Sanderson.
[2:29:47] Bob Dobbs: They became great friends,
[2:29:48] Bob Dobbs: and he would visit to Nova Scotia as much as he could.
[2:29:52] Bob Dobbs: So George was feeling the attraction of the Halifax School of Communication,
[2:29:56] Bob Dobbs: but probably didn't know the impact of it,
[2:30:00] Bob Dobbs: other than
[2:30:01] Bob Dobbs: Maybe he was interested in Nova Scotia and went up and looked at McLuhan roots and all that,
[2:30:05] Bob Dobbs: you know?
[2:30:06] Bob Dobbs: Maybe that's part of the reason he went there.
[2:30:09] Bob Dobbs: So
[2:30:10] Bob Dobbs: I think we have established the Halifax School of Communication,
[2:30:14] Bob Dobbs: and it started before the Winnipeg School of Communication.
[2:30:19] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[2:30:20] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[2:30:23] Cameron McEwen: in some ways it was started before.
[2:30:25] Cameron McEwen: In some ways it was established after.
[2:30:28] Cameron McEwen: It was a very complex.
[2:30:34] Cameron McEwen: growth of roots.
[2:30:36] Bob Dobbs: In both places.
[2:30:39] Cameron McEwen: But intertwined.
[2:30:43] Bob Dobbs: I've said that a big influence on McLuhan PhD was his mother.
[2:30:47] Bob Dobbs: He was trying to understand a rhetorician.
[2:30:53] Cameron McEwen: More than that,
[2:30:55] Cameron McEwen: the trivium is
[2:31:00] Cameron McEwen: a series of masks.
[2:31:03] Cameron McEwen: And so
[2:31:05] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan mother
[2:31:06] Cameron McEwen: on stage gave a presentation of what
[2:31:11] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan tried to show in history.
[2:31:16] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[2:31:17] Cameron McEwen: The taking off and putting on of different masks.
[2:31:22] Bob Dobbs: Exactly.
[2:31:24] Cameron McEwen: That's what his thesis is all about.
[2:31:26] Bob Dobbs: It's about our time,
[2:31:28] Bob Dobbs: right today.
[2:31:30] Bob Dobbs: I haven't had to wear a mask yet,
[2:31:32] Bob Dobbs: but a lot of people are wearing masks today.
[2:31:36] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[2:31:37] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[2:31:38] Cameron McEwen: that's a mask in the particularized sense,
[2:31:43] Cameron McEwen: in the literal sense.
[2:31:44] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[2:31:46] Cameron McEwen: In the proper sense,
[2:31:49] Cameron McEwen: we all do nothing but wear masks.
[2:31:53] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[2:31:53] Bob Dobbs: So
[2:31:54] Bob Dobbs: I probably think if anybody else are left out,
[2:31:57] Bob Dobbs: as we inaugurate the new website,
[2:31:59] Bob Dobbs: the Halifax School of Communication.
[2:32:01] Bob Dobbs: There you go.
[2:32:03] Cameron McEwen: A lot of this is already on my website.
[2:32:06] Cameron McEwen: if you
[2:32:07] Cameron McEwen: If you search for Nova Scotia or you search for Dalhousie or search for Acadia or whatever,
[2:32:17] Cameron McEwen: it's all there already.
[2:32:18] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[2:32:19] Bob Dobbs: so then we could,
[2:32:20] Bob Dobbs: can you put an audio on your site?
[2:32:25] Cameron McEwen: Yes.
[2:32:26] Bob Dobbs: Well,
[2:32:27] Bob Dobbs: maybe I'll excerpt this part and you'll put it in there and make a little blog title,
[2:32:32] Bob Dobbs: Halibut School of Communication.
[2:32:34] Bob Dobbs: I mean,
[2:32:35] Bob Dobbs: you started,
[2:32:36] Bob Dobbs: you pretty well named the Winnipeg school,
[2:32:38] Bob Dobbs: right?
[2:32:39] Bob Dobbs: No,
[2:32:39] Bob Dobbs: you didn't use that name.
[2:32:40] Bob Dobbs: No,
[2:32:40] Bob Dobbs: no.
[2:32:40] Bob Dobbs: You discovered it.
[2:32:43] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[2:32:44] Cameron McEwen: I wouldn't put it that way.
[2:32:48] Cameron McEwen: Jim and Toronto and...
[2:32:52] Bob Dobbs: They named it,
[2:32:52] Bob Dobbs: but you did the research.
[2:32:54] Bob Dobbs: They didn't know about Rupert Lodge and those guys,
[2:32:56] Bob Dobbs: I don't think.
[2:32:56] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[2:32:57] Cameron McEwen: that's right.
[2:32:58] Cameron McEwen: That's right.
[2:32:58] Cameron McEwen: So,
[2:32:59] Cameron McEwen: but yeah,
[2:33:00] Cameron McEwen: they,
[2:33:03] Cameron McEwen: for them...
[2:33:04] Cameron McEwen: It was the fact that
[2:33:07] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan grew up there and went to school there.
[2:33:10] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[2:33:11] Cameron McEwen: There was an important hockey team there,
[2:33:14] Cameron McEwen: et cetera.
[2:33:15] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:33:16] Bob Dobbs: But,
[2:33:16] Bob Dobbs: no,
[2:33:17] Bob Dobbs: you discovered the Winnipeg roots and the Winnipeg School of Communication,
[2:33:21] Bob Dobbs: and you discovered the Halifax School.
[2:33:24] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[2:33:24] Bob Dobbs: maybe.
[2:33:25] Bob Dobbs: No,
[2:33:26] Bob Dobbs: you didn't.
[2:33:26] Cameron McEwen: But Jim
[2:33:29] Cameron McEwen: Patterson and
[2:33:31] Cameron McEwen: Rich Altman are important.
[2:33:34] Cameron McEwen: contributors to the Winnipeg School.
[2:33:36] Bob Dobbs: Yes.
[2:33:39] Bob Dobbs: So you can write a blog if you want to.
[2:33:42] Bob Dobbs: Did you ever write something with Winnipeg School of Communication?
[2:33:47] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[2:33:47] Bob Dobbs: tons,
[2:33:47] Cameron McEwen: tons.
[2:33:50] Bob Dobbs: What?
[2:33:51] Cameron McEwen: I say tons.
[2:33:52] Bob Dobbs: You use that title.
[2:33:54] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:33:55] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[2:33:55] Cameron McEwen: I got one of the links on my website.
[2:34:00] Cameron McEwen: It goes to the Winnipeg School of Communication.
[2:34:03] Cameron McEwen: School of Communication.
[2:34:06] Bob Dobbs: And are you giving
[2:34:09] Bob Dobbs: Jim credit for naming it,
[2:34:11] Bob Dobbs: or did you name it at the same time?
[2:34:14] Cameron McEwen: Oh,
[2:34:15] Cameron McEwen: I don't know.
[2:34:19] Cameron McEwen: I think I have some links to some of Jim's artwork,
[2:34:23] Cameron McEwen: and
[2:34:24] Cameron McEwen: I have links to some of
[2:34:27] Cameron McEwen: Rich's film.
[2:34:29] Cameron McEwen: But if you click on the Winnipeg School of Communication,
[2:34:32] Cameron McEwen: I'll bet there's at least 20 or 25 posts that touch on that.
[2:34:41] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[2:34:46] Bob Dobbs: What is Edmonton claiming?
[2:34:48] Bob Dobbs: Not much,
[2:34:48] Bob Dobbs: right?
[2:34:50] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[2:34:50] Cameron McEwen: quite a bit,
[2:34:51] Cameron McEwen: actually,
[2:34:51] Cameron McEwen: because at least
[2:34:54] Cameron McEwen: Edmonton has bought the house that's um,
[2:35:00] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was born in,
[2:35:01] Cameron McEwen: or if he was born in a hospital,
[2:35:04] Cameron McEwen: to which he was taken back to after birth and lived in for three years.
[2:35:10] Cameron McEwen: And so they bought that and turned it into an art center.
[2:35:15] Cameron McEwen: And then later,
[2:35:17] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan got an honorary degree at the University of
[2:35:22] Cameron McEwen: Alberta and gave the convocation lecture there.
[2:35:28] Cameron McEwen: and
[2:35:29] Cameron McEwen: Then some of the people that he worked closely with established the White Pelican there,
[2:35:43] Cameron McEwen: and that was...
[2:35:44] Bob Dobbs: Watson.
[2:35:46] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:35:46] Cameron McEwen: the Watson taught there and published stuff on McLuhan and the White Pelican.
[2:35:55] Cameron McEwen: And
[2:35:56] Cameron McEwen: I'm trying to think,
[2:35:57] Cameron McEwen: there was one other...
[2:35:59] Cameron McEwen: connection to University of Alberta that just slipped my mind at the moment.
[2:36:05] Cameron McEwen: But
[2:36:05] Cameron McEwen: Edmonton is not totally unimportant for
[2:36:10] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan, for sure.
[2:36:12] Cameron McEwen: And that's where nearly all of the McLuhan family lived in
[2:36:19] Cameron McEwen: Edmonton in,
[2:36:22] Cameron McEwen: let's say,
[2:36:22] Cameron McEwen: the
[2:36:23] Cameron McEwen: 1920s. He had,
[2:36:25] Cameron McEwen: I forget how many brothers and sisters,
[2:36:27] Cameron McEwen: but maybe seven.
[2:36:29] Cameron McEwen: And they all lived there except for his father.
[2:36:34] Bob Dobbs: Who had the seven brothers and sisters?
[2:36:37] Bob Dobbs: His father?
[2:36:37] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan.
[2:36:38] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan.
[2:36:40] Bob Dobbs: Marshall?
[2:36:41] Cameron McEwen: Had seven,
[2:36:42] Cameron McEwen: yeah,
[2:36:42] Cameron McEwen: Marshall was a son of like six or seven children.
[2:36:52] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[2:36:52] Bob Dobbs: of McLuhan father.
[2:36:54] Cameron McEwen: Siblings,
[2:36:56] Cameron McEwen: yeah.
[2:36:56] Bob Dobbs: No,
[2:36:56] Bob Dobbs: wait a minute.
[2:36:57] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan,
[2:36:59] Bob Dobbs: as Maurice McLuhan said,
[2:37:00] Bob Dobbs: was an only child.
[2:37:03] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:37:04] Cameron McEwen: so
[2:37:07] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan father was...
[2:37:11] Cameron McEwen: one of a bunch of siblings.
[2:37:13] Cameron McEwen: But McLuhan himself was,
[2:37:17] Cameron McEwen: in Maurice's reckoning,
[2:37:18] Cameron McEwen: an only child,
[2:37:20] Cameron McEwen: and in most people's reckoning,
[2:37:22] Cameron McEwen: one of two.
[2:37:24] Bob Dobbs: Right,
[2:37:24] Bob Dobbs: but so you said Marshall
[2:37:26] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan had siblings.
[2:37:28] Bob Dobbs: No,
[2:37:29] Bob Dobbs: Marshall's father had all these siblings,
[2:37:32] Bob Dobbs: and they all end up living in Edmonton.
[2:37:34] Cameron McEwen: Correct.
[2:37:35] Bob Dobbs: I see.
[2:37:36] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[2:37:36] Cameron McEwen: Sorry,
[2:37:37] Cameron McEwen: I meant to say that he had uncles and aunts.
[2:37:41] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[2:37:42] Bob Dobbs: Okay,
[2:37:43] Bob Dobbs: so whatever it was I think
[2:37:47] Bob Dobbs: I was going to say,
[2:37:48] Bob Dobbs: I forgot,
[2:37:49] Bob Dobbs: and maybe I'll think of it,
[2:37:51] Bob Dobbs: but I look forward to your blog on the Halifax School of Communication.
[2:37:55] Bob Dobbs: No,
[2:37:55] Bob Dobbs: the Nova Scotia School,
[2:37:57] Bob Dobbs: not Halifax.
[2:37:58] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:37:58] Cameron McEwen: Nova Scotia is probably better because of the Annapolis Valley and Annie Ganesh.
[2:38:03] Bob Dobbs: Right,
[2:38:03] Bob Dobbs: and we're the first to be a non-city title.
[2:38:10] Bob Dobbs: We are.
[2:38:10] Bob Dobbs: provincial title.
[2:38:14] Bob Dobbs: A bigger zone of influence.
[2:38:17] Bob Dobbs: But I like the fact that Wyndham Lewis was born there.
[2:38:20] Bob Dobbs: That's pretty neat.
[2:38:21] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.
[2:38:22] Cameron McEwen: We need to bring in Amherst as well.
[2:38:24] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[2:38:25] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[2:38:27] Bob Dobbs: I think that's it.
[2:38:28] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[2:38:29] Bob Dobbs: I remember.
[2:38:30] Bob Dobbs: Wait,
[2:38:30] Bob Dobbs: I remembered.
[2:38:32] Bob Dobbs: Have you ever heard of Mr.
[2:38:34] Bob Dobbs: McEwen at McGill University?
[2:38:40] Cameron McEwen: I don't think so,
[2:38:41] Cameron McEwen: but
[2:38:42] Cameron McEwen: I am aware that there's a lot of
[2:38:45] Cameron McEwen: Cameron McEwen around in the academic world.
[2:38:49] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[2:38:50] Bob Dobbs: Have you ever heard of MKUltra?
[2:38:53] Cameron McEwen: Yes,
[2:38:54] Cameron McEwen: of course.
[2:38:55] Bob Dobbs: Have you heard of the McEwan at McGill who ran the thing?
[2:38:59] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[2:39:00] Cameron McEwen: yeah,
[2:39:00] Cameron McEwen: Actually,
[2:39:01] Cameron McEwen: I have.
[2:39:01] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:39:02] Bob Dobbs: And I'm just thinking.
[2:39:03] Cameron McEwen: And it's,
[2:39:05] Cameron McEwen: yeah,
[2:39:06] Cameron McEwen: some of the stuff they did was horrendous.
[2:39:09] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[2:39:10] Bob Dobbs: his name is,
[2:39:13] Bob Dobbs: what is this,
[2:39:14] Bob Dobbs: Donald Ewen Cameron.
[2:39:17] Cameron McEwen: There you go.
[2:39:18] Bob Dobbs: Cameron McEwen is your name in reverse.
[2:39:23] Bob Dobbs: Let me see if I got it right.
[2:39:25] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,
[2:39:25] Bob Dobbs: there he is,
[2:39:26] Bob Dobbs: Donald Ewen
[2:39:27] Bob Dobbs: Cameron McEwen, died in 67.
[2:39:30] Bob Dobbs: And some of his work took place in the context of the Project MKUltra program for the development.
[2:39:38] Bob Dobbs: for the developing of mind control and torture techniques,
[2:39:40] Bob Dobbs: psychoactive poisons,
[2:39:41] Bob Dobbs: and behavior modification systems.
[2:39:44] Bob Dobbs: So
[2:39:44] Bob Dobbs: I had it backwards.
[2:39:46] Bob Dobbs: I was wondering if it was related to you.
[2:39:48] Bob Dobbs: But no,
[2:39:48] Bob Dobbs: the name is
[2:39:50] Bob Dobbs: Donald Ewen Cameron.
[2:39:51] Bob Dobbs: But there's something there,
[2:39:52] Bob Dobbs: because I say that McLuhan exposed a larger mind control operation than the puny
[2:39:58] Bob Dobbs: CIA one-on-one operation.
[2:40:02] Bob Dobbs: So you're the mirror image of the puny operation.
[2:40:07] Bob Dobbs: You adopted the weather level of mind control.
[2:40:13] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[2:40:15] Bob Dobbs: That's my part,
[2:40:15] Bob Dobbs: folks.
[2:40:17] Bob Dobbs: The weather.
[2:40:19] Cameron McEwen: So this guy's name was Donald Ewen Cameron,
[2:40:23] Cameron McEwen: right?
[2:40:23] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[2:40:24] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.
[2:40:24] Bob Dobbs: Look him up.
[2:40:28] Cameron McEwen: He was actually born in the UK,
[2:40:31] Cameron McEwen: I see.
[2:40:32] Cameron McEwen: So,
[2:40:35] Cameron McEwen: but...
[2:40:36] Cameron McEwen: My father was Donald Cameron McEwen,
[2:40:38] Cameron McEwen: right?
[2:40:39] Bob Dobbs: And
[2:40:40] Cameron McEwen: McEwen just means son of Ewan.
[2:40:42] Cameron McEwen: So he's Donald Ewen Cameron.
[2:40:45] Cameron McEwen: My father was
[2:40:46] Cameron McEwen: Donald Cameron McEwen,
[2:40:48] Cameron McEwen: and I'm Cameron McEwen.
[2:40:51] Cameron McEwen: And my father's middle name was Cameron.
[2:40:54] Cameron McEwen: He was
[2:40:55] Cameron McEwen: Donald Cameron McEwen.
[2:40:56] Bob Dobbs: Wow.
[2:40:58] Bob Dobbs: It's intertwined there.
[2:40:59] Bob Dobbs: We become our names,
[2:41:02] Bob Dobbs: as McEwen used to say.
[2:41:04] Bob Dobbs: what
[2:41:05] Bob Dobbs: I think I had another thing I was going to start saying.
[2:41:08] Bob Dobbs: So,
[2:41:10] Bob Dobbs: MKUltra.
[2:41:12] Bob Dobbs: Now,
[2:41:12] Bob Dobbs: I'm going to leave it there.
[2:41:17] Bob Dobbs: Great,
[2:41:17] Bob Dobbs: great session.
[2:41:18] Bob Dobbs: So I think we may have established who or what McLuhan and the Syllable Awareness is,
[2:41:24] Bob Dobbs: sort of,
[2:41:25] Bob Dobbs: something.
[2:41:26] Bob Dobbs: Maybe not completed the Syllable Awareness.
[2:41:28] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:41:28] Cameron McEwen: it's a research project.
[2:41:30] Bob Dobbs: Right.
[2:41:31] Bob Dobbs: And we need to,
[2:41:32] Bob Dobbs: so consciousness is a research project.
[2:41:35] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.
[2:41:36] Bob Dobbs: The Syllable Awareness.
[2:41:39] Bob Dobbs: So we might start the book.
[2:41:42] Bob Dobbs: next week.
[2:41:44] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,
[2:41:44] Cameron McEwen: okay.
[2:41:45] Cameron McEwen: Well,
[2:41:46] Cameron McEwen: I'd like to do the taking flight post.
[2:41:51] Bob Dobbs: Oh,
[2:41:51] Bob Dobbs: yeah.
[2:41:51] Bob Dobbs: We can do that.
[2:41:52] Cameron McEwen: But we can get through that in half an hour at the outside.
[2:41:57] Cameron McEwen: So we can do that and then go to the book.
[2:42:00] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[2:42:01] Bob Dobbs: All right.
[2:42:01] Bob Dobbs: Thanks very much,
[2:42:02] Bob Dobbs: Cameron.
[2:42:02] Bob Dobbs: Another great session.
[2:42:03] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[2:42:03] Cameron McEwen: Same here,
[2:42:03] Cameron McEwen: Bob.
[2:42:04] Bob Dobbs: Okay.
[2:42:05] Bob Dobbs: Talk to you later.
[2:42:06] Bob Dobbs: Bye.