Dialogue 49 — Transcript

[00:01] Bob Dobbs: This is Cameron McEwen and Bob Dobbs once again for episode number 49 and it's actually

[00:09] Bob Dobbs: May 19th 2022.

[00:14] Bob Dobbs: So we're looking at my book slash pamphlet.

[00:17] Bob Dobbs: We're at the bottom page 97.

[00:20] Bob Dobbs: If you want to check it out,

[00:21] Bob Dobbs: listen to us or follow along.

[00:24] Bob Dobbs: So we have a quote right above where I want to start.

[00:30] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan says,

[00:32] Bob Dobbs: All these convulsive changes,

[00:33] Bob Dobbs: as I've already noted,

[00:35] Bob Dobbs: carry with them attendant pain,

[00:37] Bob Dobbs: violence,

[00:38] Bob Dobbs: and war,

[00:38] Bob Dobbs: the normal stigmata of the identity quest.

[00:41] Bob Dobbs: But the new society is springing so quickly from the ashes of the old that I believe it will be possible to avoid the transitional anarchy many predict.

[00:50] Bob Dobbs: Automation and cybernation can play an essential role in smoothing the transition to the new society.

[00:56] Bob Dobbs: That's from Playboy.

[00:59] Bob Dobbs: So then

[01:00] Bob Dobbs: I say...

[01:01] Bob Dobbs: This is 1969,

[01:03] Bob Dobbs: meaning that it's the Playboy issue,

[01:05] Bob Dobbs: March 1969.

[01:08] Bob Dobbs: Then I say,

[01:08] Bob Dobbs: actually,

[01:08] Bob Dobbs: probably late 68,

[01:10] Bob Dobbs: because I talked to

[01:12] Bob Dobbs: Marge Stewart and,

[01:13] Bob Dobbs: I don't know,

[01:15] Bob Dobbs: Barry,

[01:15] Bob Dobbs: Nevitt,

[01:16] Bob Dobbs: maybe Eric.

[01:19] Bob Dobbs: So what I say is the story.

[01:21] Bob Dobbs: The interviewer,

[01:22] Bob Dobbs: Eric Norden,

[01:23] Bob Dobbs: who was a regular interviewer for Playboy,

[01:26] Bob Dobbs: couldn't understand anything McLuhan was saying.

[01:29] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan had to write out the answers for him.

[01:33] Bob Dobbs: So that's why a lot of the answers by McLuhan seem like they were written.

[01:46] Bob Dobbs: They don't seem the way someone would talk,

[01:49] Bob Dobbs: not colloquially in a Playboy interview.

[01:52] Bob Dobbs: And so that's the reason that they seem,

[01:55] Bob Dobbs: I don't know,

[01:56] Bob Dobbs: overwhelming,

[01:56] Bob Dobbs: too articulate,

[01:59] Bob Dobbs: too precise.

[02:01] Bob Dobbs: But it was probably better that McLuhan wrote out the answers,

[02:06] Bob Dobbs: since he wanted to be as clear as possible.

[02:09] Bob Dobbs: You write out the stuff.

[02:10] Bob Dobbs: If they're going to give you an opportunity to do it,

[02:13] Bob Dobbs: write it out.

[02:14] Bob Dobbs: So that's an interesting thing,

[02:15] Bob Dobbs: but it might put off people about McLuhan himself because it doesn't seem natural enough.

[02:23] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[02:23] Bob Dobbs: I met

[02:24] Bob Dobbs: Eric Norden's friend,

[02:26] Bob Dobbs: Paris Flammonde,

[02:27] Bob Dobbs: an American writer.

[02:29] Bob Dobbs: And...

[02:30] Bob Dobbs: So I have here,

[02:31] Bob Dobbs: Norden and I met his friend.

[02:34] Bob Dobbs: That's said wrong.

[02:36] Bob Dobbs: I met

[02:38] Bob Dobbs: Norden's friend,

[02:39] Bob Dobbs: Paris Flammonde,

[02:43] Bob Dobbs: with whom you can hear an interview I did.

[02:48] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[02:48] Bob Dobbs: you have to contact me.

[02:49] Bob Dobbs: You have to be shown where it is.

[02:52] Bob Dobbs: This was Paris Flammonde.

[02:54] Bob Dobbs: So

[02:56] Bob Dobbs: Paris Flammonde,

[02:57] Bob Dobbs: Eric Norden's best friend,

[02:59] Bob Dobbs: told me...

[03:00] Bob Dobbs: He heard a lot of complaints from Eric Norden.

[03:03] Bob Dobbs: So I have here,

[03:04] Bob Dobbs: Paris Flammonde was listening to Eric complain about his interview with McLuhan.

[03:12] Bob Dobbs: I have here,

[03:12] Bob Dobbs: here it is a nice happy time in 64,

[03:17] Bob Dobbs: 65,

[03:18] Bob Dobbs: when they,

[03:19] Bob Dobbs: the nebulous people I guess,

[03:20] Bob Dobbs: the masses,

[03:20] Bob Dobbs: believed experts could do something.

[03:22] Bob Dobbs: But by 1969,

[03:25] Bob Dobbs: so I should say here it was a nice happy time,

[03:28] Bob Dobbs: 64,

[03:28] Bob Dobbs: 65.

[03:29] Bob Dobbs: Now in 69,

[03:30] Bob Dobbs: all kinds of disturbing phenomena had happened.

[03:33] Bob Dobbs: First of all,

[03:34] Bob Dobbs: their kids went nuts,

[03:35] Bob Dobbs: nuts in quotes,

[03:36] Bob Dobbs: ran off to San Francisco in 67.

[03:39] Bob Dobbs: That's American kids,

[03:40] Bob Dobbs: some Canadians.

[03:42] Bob Dobbs: The music changed.

[03:43] Bob Dobbs: Then North Vietnam did the Tet Offensive in January 68,

[03:46] Bob Dobbs: and that messed up the Vietnam War optimism.

[03:48] Bob Dobbs: Then Martin Luther King was killed,

[03:50] Bob Dobbs: followed by Robert Kennedy.

[03:52] Bob Dobbs: Martin Luther King was April,

[03:53] Bob Dobbs: Robert Kennedy was June.

[03:55] Bob Dobbs: The same day,

[03:56] Bob Dobbs: within a few hours,

[03:57] Bob Dobbs: Andy Warhol was...

[03:58] Bob Dobbs: shot.

[04:00] Bob Dobbs: And with that,

[04:00] Bob Dobbs: he was pissed that Kennedy stole all the coverage from him.

[04:05] Bob Dobbs: Then the Democratic riots in Chicago in

[04:07] Bob Dobbs: August 68.

[04:09] Bob Dobbs: These seem tame now.

[04:11] Bob Dobbs: But back then,

[04:12] Bob Dobbs: you had sort of a general serenity in America on the surface,

[04:17] Bob Dobbs: at least in the news.

[04:19] Bob Dobbs: These mass disruptions was new for America.

[04:24] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[04:25] Bob Dobbs: new for several decades,

[04:26] Bob Dobbs: I guess.

[04:27] Bob Dobbs: going back to World War II or the 30s.

[04:31] Bob Dobbs: Then I say you have the

[04:32] Bob Dobbs: Democratic conventions,

[04:34] Bob Dobbs: Republican conventions,

[04:35] Bob Dobbs: and in the fall,

[04:36] Bob Dobbs: the disaster of Nixon winning the election.

[04:38] Bob Dobbs: It's a disaster for large numbers of the baby boomers who were out running around protesting and probably were a very small minority,

[04:49] Bob Dobbs: but the media exaggerated them.

[04:52] Bob Dobbs: It was a good new phenomenon.

[04:54] Bob Dobbs: It was like the boomer generation was...

[04:56] Bob Dobbs: I was going through all these phases and the media was ready to make a big deal out of them.

[05:01] Bob Dobbs: And I guess that created all-at-onceness in the baby boomers.

[05:07] Bob Dobbs: The

[05:08] Bob Dobbs: Nixon represented sort of something counter to the

[05:13] Bob Dobbs: 60s.

[05:14] Bob Dobbs: So I have here the disaster of Nixon winning the election.

[05:17] Bob Dobbs: The mafia puppet wins the presidency.

[05:20] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[05:20] Bob Dobbs: if you study people like Mae Brussell,

[05:23] Bob Dobbs: you find out Nixon was very involved with the mafia,

[05:26] Bob Dobbs: and a lot of stuff has come out since then.

[05:27] Bob Dobbs: But I don't think people would believe that back in 68,

[05:31] Bob Dobbs: that Nixon was a mafia person.

[05:34] Bob Dobbs: At best,

[05:34] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan was right to say Nixon's...

[05:37] Bob Dobbs: His face was not charismatic.

[05:40] Bob Dobbs: He hung his face,

[05:42] Bob Dobbs: too much of his private face out.

[05:44] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan recommended he should grow sideburns and put mustaches on and stuff to put on a bit of a corporate image of the tribal fads of the day.

[05:55] Bob Dobbs: But he didn't.

[05:55] Bob Dobbs: He hung his,

[05:57] Bob Dobbs: what was the phrase,

[05:58] Bob Dobbs: his bare face out.

[05:59] Bob Dobbs: It's in Culture Is Our Business,

[06:01] Bob Dobbs: some phrase.

[06:02] Bob Dobbs: Hung out his bare face.

[06:03] Bob Dobbs: Do you remember that?

[06:05] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[06:05] Cameron McEwen: I remember the general idea.

[06:07] Cameron McEwen: You talked about it a lot,

[06:09] Cameron McEwen: but I don't remember the particular phrase that you're referring to.

[06:12] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[06:13] Bob Dobbs: said

[06:14] Bob Dobbs: Noel. And now it's 1969.

[06:17] Bob Dobbs: This is after

[06:20] Bob Dobbs: Nixon wins in November 69.

[06:24] Bob Dobbs: I say you've had a lot of convulsive changes.

[06:26] Bob Dobbs: That's McLuhan quote from McLuhan,

[06:29] Bob Dobbs: convulsive changes that McLuhan referring to.

[06:31] Bob Dobbs: So if McLuhan was doing the interview in the late 68,

[06:35] Bob Dobbs: Everything I've said had happened.

[06:40] Bob Dobbs: In November 68,

[06:41] Bob Dobbs: around the time

[06:42] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan may be still writing this for Eric Norden,

[06:46] Bob Dobbs: Nixon comes in and there's a kind of chill in the world.

[06:52] Bob Dobbs: Norman Mailer Wright some interesting novels about this period,

[06:54] Bob Dobbs: if you want to check that out.

[06:57] Bob Dobbs: Let's see.

[06:59] Bob Dobbs: So you've had a lot of convulsive changes that McLuhan referring to.

[07:04] Bob Dobbs: In a way,

[07:05] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan was on top of the convulsive changes.

[07:09] Bob Dobbs: He was noted in more than your average head-in-the-sand kind of academic.

[07:15] Bob Dobbs: He was the perfect guy to sum up 68.

[07:19] Cameron McEwen: Notice that

[07:23] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan is noting the changes,

[07:28] Cameron McEwen: but also expressing confidence.

[07:32] Cameron McEwen: that they're going to be solved.

[07:37] Bob Dobbs: Through automation.

[07:38] Bob Dobbs: What the heck would that mean?

[07:39] Bob Dobbs: Many people think that's what caused more anger and identity crisis.

[07:43] Cameron McEwen: Correct.

[07:44] Bob Dobbs: The popular robot image of an automated society.

[07:47] Bob Dobbs: So you've got to look at what the heck is he saying.

[07:50] Bob Dobbs: He's saying something really different there.

[07:52] Bob Dobbs: How can automation and cybernation play an essential role?

[07:55] Bob Dobbs: I see that that's his using the computer to modulate sensory thresholds,

[08:00] Bob Dobbs: which you don't.

[08:01] Bob Dobbs: take too seriously,

[08:02] Bob Dobbs: but what else could automation and cybernation be used for to smooth the transition?

[08:09] Cameron McEwen: No,

[08:10] Cameron McEwen: We agree that the modulation of the senses is exactly the ground of his hope.

[08:22] Cameron McEwen: Where we disagree is what was meant by the modulation of the senses.

[08:28] Cameron McEwen: You tend to take an Thanks.

[08:30] Cameron McEwen: Extremely literal view,

[08:33] Cameron McEwen: which I regard as sort of a Gutenbergian view.

[08:37] Cameron McEwen: And I take an electric view,

[08:43] Cameron McEwen: a simultaneous dynamic view.

[08:48] Bob Dobbs: So what is that?

[08:49] Bob Dobbs: What is your view?

[08:52] Bob Dobbs: What is automation and cybernation going to do?

[08:53] Bob Dobbs: How does it make it be an art form in bringing it into society?

[09:02] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[09:02] Cameron McEwen: first,

[09:04] Cameron McEwen: according to McLuhan,

[09:05] Cameron McEwen: everything is art because everything is making.

[09:11] Cameron McEwen: So we can't take art literally either.

[09:15] Cameron McEwen: Everything,

[09:17] Cameron McEwen: at least in my reading of

[09:19] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan, there is no literal anchor to anything.

[09:23] Cameron McEwen: Everything is dynamic.

[09:25] Cameron McEwen: Everything is subject to the flip.

[09:29] Cameron McEwen: of figure and ground.

[09:31] Cameron McEwen: So what I see McLuhan as attempting to do is to set out the possibility of figure,

[09:41] Cameron McEwen: the entire range of possibilities of figure and ground flip and then on the basis of that understand the

[09:56] Cameron McEwen: convulsions,

[09:57] Cameron McEwen: the natural convulsions.

[09:59] Cameron McEwen: of history and through that understanding transform

[10:08] Cameron McEwen: how we react to convulsions and how we go into convulsions in the first place.

[10:14] Bob Dobbs: So what I say about modulating the media anti-environment is not a correct understanding based on what you're saying.

[10:22] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[10:23] Cameron McEwen: I believe that you take it too literally.

[10:25] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[10:26] Bob Dobbs: Why do you think he made it sound literal?

[10:30] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[10:31] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[10:32] Cameron McEwen: as we've often discussed,

[10:35] Cameron McEwen: I have to use words when I'm talking to you,

[10:37] Cameron McEwen: right?

[10:37] Cameron McEwen: So

[10:39] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was always caught in the problem that he couldn't say what he wanted to say because people were only on the way to

[10:57] Cameron McEwen: being able to understand what he wanted to say.

[10:59] Cameron McEwen: So he was always caught in the dilemma that in a certain way he had to speak.

[11:04] Cameron McEwen: to people's understandings,

[11:07] Cameron McEwen: which automatically falsified what he was talking about.

[11:11] Cameron McEwen: But if he didn't do that,

[11:13] Cameron McEwen: he couldn't reach them.

[11:15] Cameron McEwen: And that's the problem he had teaching his classes,

[11:18] Cameron McEwen: and it's the problem he had talking,

[11:22] Cameron McEwen: for example,

[11:23] Cameron McEwen: on TV or radio.

[11:24] Cameron McEwen: So the whole thing that is interesting about McLuhan in my reading is that

[11:31] Cameron McEwen: He was attempting to deal with an age-old problem here.

[11:36] Cameron McEwen: It's a problem that

[11:37] Cameron McEwen: Plato addressed as dialectic.

[11:40] Cameron McEwen: How do words suddenly jump beyond themselves into a new understanding?

[11:47] Cameron McEwen: It's something that the

[11:49] Cameron McEwen: Western tradition has never solved.

[11:51] Bob Dobbs: Have you come anywhere near solving it?

[11:56] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[11:58] Cameron McEwen: I think once...

[11:59] Cameron McEwen: It's not really a question of...

[12:03] Cameron McEwen: solving in the sense of having a puzzle and then you find the right answer.

[12:11] Cameron McEwen: The solution,

[12:14] Cameron McEwen: which could be taken almost in a chemical sense of dissolving a problem,

[12:21] Cameron McEwen: right?

[12:22] Cameron McEwen: Wittgenstein said that the way to address the way to get beyond philosophical problems

[12:31] Cameron McEwen: according to Wittgenstein,

[12:32] Cameron McEwen: is to dissolve them as problems.

[12:37] Cameron McEwen: And I see something similar going on in McLuhan and also in my understanding of McLuhan,

[12:44] Cameron McEwen: and that is that the events of history,

[12:52] Cameron McEwen: including the experience of individuals,

[13:00] Cameron McEwen: is always a foreground matter.

[13:03] Cameron McEwen: And what needs to be realized is that these foreground matters are humorous in a certain sense because they are inevitably alienated

[13:18] Cameron McEwen: from ground.

[13:20] Cameron McEwen: So we're all in the position of wearing masks.

[13:23] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[13:24] Cameron McEwen: the chapter we're looking at is the global theater.

[13:28] Cameron McEwen: We're all in the position of wearing masks and playing roles,

[13:33] Cameron McEwen: and the difficulty of trying to understand these very profound problems of human life is to come to terms with this gap between the mask and

[13:48] Cameron McEwen: the role that we're always playing and the complete range of roles that are available to us.

[13:55] Cameron McEwen: That's something that tragedy is born out of that,

[13:58] Cameron McEwen: but also humor.

[14:00] Cameron McEwen: And so the solution,

[14:03] Cameron McEwen: if you will,

[14:04] Cameron McEwen: is to ride the tragedy and the humor of that gap.

[14:11] Cameron McEwen: And a lot of your work I see as doing that.

[14:15] Cameron McEwen: You bring a sense of humor and remove almost everything you do.

[14:20] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[14:21] Bob Dobbs: So let me say this.

[14:22] Bob Dobbs: So there is a...

[14:25] Bob Dobbs: a harmony and a homeostasis of balance happening in the world.

[14:31] Bob Dobbs: Would that be the ground?

[14:32] Bob Dobbs: So if

[14:34] Bob Dobbs: Black Lives Matter starts,

[14:37] Bob Dobbs: you encounter their,

[14:39] Bob Dobbs: go to one of their meetings and they're all pissed off at white people,

[14:42] Bob Dobbs: and you get them to calm down and you start laying out the visual space dynamics,

[14:47] Bob Dobbs: the acoustic space,

[14:48] Bob Dobbs: the tactile gap,

[14:50] Bob Dobbs: and the electric extension,

[14:52] Bob Dobbs: sort of lay out McLuhan's thing and present it as a,

[14:54] Bob Dobbs: almost like a poem.

[14:55] Bob Dobbs: This is the balance.

[14:58] Bob Dobbs: Your natural instincts have a great market,

[15:02] Bob Dobbs: and it's usually seen in entertainment and music and that.

[15:06] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[15:06] Bob Dobbs: maybe some say,

[15:07] Bob Dobbs: well,

[15:07] Bob Dobbs: okay,

[15:07] Bob Dobbs: you're just seeing us as the court gestures or something,

[15:11] Bob Dobbs: court entertainment.

[15:12] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[15:13] Bob Dobbs: but that's your natural abilities as a race in your history makes you do these.

[15:21] Bob Dobbs: The content for electric media,

[15:22] Bob Dobbs: which people want,

[15:24] Bob Dobbs: you match that.

[15:26] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[15:27] Bob Dobbs: the

[15:27] Bob Dobbs: Western white guys,

[15:30] Bob Dobbs: men and women,

[15:31] Bob Dobbs: they're good at accounting and managing and bureaucracy.

[15:35] Bob Dobbs: They're stiff.

[15:37] Bob Dobbs: So it starts to lay out the way populations around the world are balancing each other off and then different media anti-environment enhance in different situations,

[15:46] Bob Dobbs: one tribe or one.

[15:48] Bob Dobbs: groups,

[15:49] Bob Dobbs: sensory characteristics versus another.

[15:51] Bob Dobbs: And then you ultimately see how,

[15:53] Bob Dobbs: look,

[15:54] Bob Dobbs: everything's quite balanced.

[15:55] Bob Dobbs: Resume what you're doing,

[15:56] Bob Dobbs: be what you are,

[15:57] Bob Dobbs: and understand how the machines are enhancing and maybe going to confuse so that you think that you're not appreciated on that level anymore.

[16:07] Bob Dobbs: You need to do something else.

[16:08] Bob Dobbs: So you sort of try to go to Yale and learn to play golf and become a white guy.

[16:13] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[16:13] Bob Dobbs: that's okay because industry needs people no matter where they're from.

[16:17] Bob Dobbs: to do the bureaucratic functions.

[16:20] Bob Dobbs: But on top of that,

[16:21] Bob Dobbs: everybody's being swamped by this onrushing future,

[16:26] Bob Dobbs: onrushing threat.

[16:29] Bob Dobbs: So you go on and present this scenario that we're in,

[16:32] Bob Dobbs: and what people are agitated by are not the appropriate concerns,

[16:36] Bob Dobbs: and they're actually bounced off.

[16:39] Bob Dobbs: What do you think of that?

[16:41] Bob Dobbs: It's almost like presenting McLuhan understanding as a poem,

[16:45] Bob Dobbs: a painting of a harmonious situation.

[16:48] Bob Dobbs: For example,

[16:48] Bob Dobbs: like opera comes in when the high visual grading of the printing press needs a little bit more acoustic reality in the European culture.

[16:57] Bob Dobbs: So they invent opera.

[16:59] Bob Dobbs: It's a heightened up the acoustic.

[17:01] Bob Dobbs: What do you think of that as a presentation of presenting the balance that's going on?

[17:10] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[17:12] Cameron McEwen: from my point of view,

[17:13] Cameron McEwen: the problem with that is that it's based...

[17:16] Cameron McEwen: on a bunch of Carl Williams.

[17:19] Cameron McEwen: There's the black race,

[17:20] Cameron McEwen: there's the white race,

[17:22] Cameron McEwen: there's opera,

[17:24] Cameron McEwen: there's books.

[17:30] Cameron McEwen: All of these things are Carl Williams.

[17:35] Cameron McEwen: It's as if we could go out in the world and we could point at a black person and say,

[17:40] Cameron McEwen: oh yeah,

[17:41] Cameron McEwen: here's this understanding of the world,

[17:43] Cameron McEwen: and then point to a white person.

[17:45] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[17:45] Cameron McEwen: here's this other understanding of the world.

[17:47] Cameron McEwen: But,

[17:48] Cameron McEwen: of course,

[17:48] Cameron McEwen: it's nonsense because any particular black person may have a point of view that's completely different from another black person,

[17:57] Cameron McEwen: number one.

[17:58] Cameron McEwen: And number two,

[18:00] Cameron McEwen: any person,

[18:01] Cameron McEwen: myself included and yourself included,

[18:04] Cameron McEwen: has all sorts of different points of view in a single day or a single hour.

[18:10] Cameron McEwen: So the ground.

[18:15] Cameron McEwen: of these things is extremely complicated.

[18:21] Cameron McEwen: And when we attempt to deal with them through Carl Williams,

[18:26] Cameron McEwen: that is the driver of the history or the nightmare history from which we're trying to await.

[18:36] Cameron McEwen: How do we allow deliteralisms,

[18:39] Cameron McEwen: that is to say,

[18:41] Cameron McEwen: the dynamic even of ground,

[18:44] Cameron McEwen: the dissolution even of ground,

[18:46] Cameron McEwen: how do we allow that and still retain things like individual human identity,

[18:55] Cameron McEwen: privacy,

[18:58] Cameron McEwen: order in society,

[19:00] Cameron McEwen: etc.?

[19:01] Cameron McEwen: Okay,

[19:02] Bob Dobbs: hold on.

[19:04] Bob Dobbs: So Eric,

[19:06] Bob Dobbs: in his last public interview as the center was being closed in April 1980,

[19:10] Bob Dobbs: was interviewing the Toronto Star,

[19:11] Bob Dobbs: his son of McLuhan,

[19:13] Bob Dobbs: and he said,

[19:14] Bob Dobbs: I specialize in generalities.

[19:17] Bob Dobbs: So

[19:17] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan is dealing with generalities,

[19:19] Bob Dobbs: which he felt was useful because he said the generality indicated by the term medium applied to a stretch of time,

[19:27] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[19:27] Bob Dobbs: like 25 or 100 years.

[19:30] Bob Dobbs: And we had so much new information about thousands of years back and speculation about thousands of years in the future that it's better to have these vast,

[19:38] Bob Dobbs: quote,

[19:39] Bob Dobbs: generalities about the...

[19:42] Bob Dobbs: media anti-environment,

[19:43] Bob Dobbs: and that helps us get perspective.

[19:46] Bob Dobbs: So you're saying that I'm saying,

[19:48] Bob Dobbs: because I'm using McLuhan generalities,

[19:51] Bob Dobbs: well,

[19:51] Bob Dobbs: Ewen Cameron,

[19:51] Bob Dobbs: I've got to use generalities when talking to you.

[19:55] Bob Dobbs: So are you not using generalities,

[19:59] Bob Dobbs: or how are you not being literal in your writing?

[20:03] Cameron McEwen: No,

[20:04] Cameron McEwen: you're right.

[20:04] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[20:05] Cameron McEwen: what you're pointing to is the problem of dialectic that was already seen by Plato.

[20:12] Cameron McEwen: And doubtless,

[20:13] Cameron McEwen: it's already been seen sort of forever in human history.

[20:19] Cameron McEwen: The older people,

[20:21] Cameron McEwen: the wiser people,

[20:23] Cameron McEwen: had the problem of communicating with the younger people.

[20:28] Cameron McEwen: And the whole great problem of communication is...

[20:32] Cameron McEwen: How do you engage somebody's limited understanding to take them beyond that limited understanding?

[20:40] Cameron McEwen: And of course,

[20:41] Cameron McEwen: that's a huge,

[20:42] Cameron McEwen: huge problem.

[20:44] Cameron McEwen: I'm not downplaying it,

[20:46] Cameron McEwen: but the need,

[20:51] Cameron McEwen: in my view,

[20:52] Cameron McEwen: is not to get locked in that problem.

[20:56] Cameron McEwen: The greater need,

[20:58] Cameron McEwen: in my view,

[20:59] Cameron McEwen: is to express what's...

[21:01] Cameron McEwen: mature understanding comes to when it's at last born,

[21:08] Cameron McEwen: right?

[21:08] Cameron McEwen: And those are two very different things,

[21:10] Cameron McEwen: right?

[21:11] Cameron McEwen: What is mature understanding and how do you lead to mature understanding?

[21:15] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[21:16] Bob Dobbs: how about this suggestion?

[21:18] Bob Dobbs: From this point on,

[21:19] Bob Dobbs: you be me and I'll be you,

[21:22] Bob Dobbs: and you say my line and I'll say your line back to you.

[21:26] Bob Dobbs: See what happens there.

[21:29] Bob Dobbs: We have said what we're saying right now in the first 20 minutes of this recording,

[21:33] Bob Dobbs: what we've said many hundreds of times,

[21:36] Bob Dobbs: and any person who's paying attention and listening to all our recordings should be fed up now.

[21:41] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[21:41] Bob Dobbs: we heard you guys.

[21:42] Bob Dobbs: You say the same thing every show.

[21:44] Bob Dobbs: We come up with different variations or wrinkles on the surface,

[21:47] Bob Dobbs: which are interesting,

[21:49] Bob Dobbs: but I was telling somebody or talking to somebody about this today or earlier,

[21:57] Bob Dobbs: there is the view that

[21:58] Bob Dobbs: People never change.

[22:00] Bob Dobbs: There's always fighting and wars and famine and fun celebrations.

[22:05] Bob Dobbs: The cliches of human activities.

[22:08] Bob Dobbs: So,

[22:08] Bob Dobbs: quote,

[22:08] Bob Dobbs: the conservative person says,

[22:11] Bob Dobbs: well,

[22:11] Bob Dobbs: that's always going to be the way it is.

[22:13] Bob Dobbs: So I'm not going to open my borders.

[22:16] Bob Dobbs: I'm going to have intelligence agencies to find out who's out who's trying to topple America or whatever.

[22:22] Bob Dobbs: And you understand defense and all the things that lightheaded people.

[22:28] Bob Dobbs: airheads think we should get rid of and all get along,

[22:31] Bob Dobbs: which is a really simple thing,

[22:34] Bob Dobbs: an unrealistic approach from this attitude of there are eternals.

[22:40] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[22:40] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan comes along and says,

[22:41] Bob Dobbs: yeah,

[22:42] Bob Dobbs: there are sort of eternals,

[22:44] Bob Dobbs: but the way humans express these continuous repeating of problems,

[22:52] Bob Dobbs: they don't learn from history,

[22:53] Bob Dobbs: is they do it differently.

[22:54] Bob Dobbs: At some point,

[22:55] Bob Dobbs: especially in the last couple hundred years,

[22:57] Bob Dobbs: Just...

[22:58] Bob Dobbs: different material conditions,

[22:59] Bob Dobbs: different meteorological anti-environment that makes the eternal habitual condition responses of people to sort of surprise people and come through another way.

[23:11] Bob Dobbs: They show up differently.

[23:13] Bob Dobbs: So you can look at the decided changes in the way people live their frustrating lives,

[23:21] Bob Dobbs: their up and down of their lives.

[23:24] Bob Dobbs: And so I can take what

[23:25] Bob Dobbs: I call the conservative view.

[23:27] Bob Dobbs: That there are these eternals,

[23:28] Bob Dobbs: and I just always remember people are forced to be practical and don't get too highfalutin.

[23:35] Bob Dobbs: And then a guy like McLuhan comes along and he talks to the point where people say,

[23:38] Bob Dobbs: you sound like a utopian.

[23:40] Bob Dobbs: How the hell is that going to happen?

[23:41] Bob Dobbs: Humans are never going to change.

[23:43] Bob Dobbs: But people have now,

[23:45] Bob Dobbs: 50 years,

[23:46] Bob Dobbs: 60 years later,

[23:46] Bob Dobbs: said,

[23:47] Bob Dobbs: holy shit,

[23:47] Bob Dobbs: this world is completely different.

[23:49] Bob Dobbs: I don't know if there's any eternities anymore.

[23:52] Bob Dobbs: And if there aren't any more...

[23:54] Bob Dobbs: unchangeable human factors then we're not human anymore right so something has you could say has tipped the scale to to supporting the idea that people do change and there are not eternal uh things uh

[24:10] Cameron McEwen: eternal conditions but don't confuse two things one one is uh uh do people change and the answer to that is of course and McLuhan recognized that and the other is

[24:24] Cameron McEwen: the disappearance of eternals.

[24:26] Cameron McEwen: And that's something that is also true and that had its roots back in the

[24:34] Cameron McEwen: 19th century and according to

[24:37] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan and many other people like Heidegger say actually had its roots back in Greece.

[24:45] Cameron McEwen: So we can't confuse the fact of change with the disappearance of Eternals.

[24:54] Cameron McEwen: Those are completely different things and need to be considered very carefully.

[25:02] Bob Dobbs: Would the Eternals be the elements that you're pointing out in Media Dynamics,

[25:06] Bob Dobbs: the new media science?

[25:07] Cameron McEwen: Yes,

[25:08] Cameron McEwen: absolutely,

[25:08] Cameron McEwen: absolutely.

[25:09] Cameron McEwen: Let me read you a couple short quotes that you yourself have cited Innis same chapter.

[25:19] Cameron McEwen: One is from page 88,

[25:21] Cameron McEwen: and there

[25:22] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan says,

[25:23] Cameron McEwen: this pattern of non-lineality is evident in every human activity.

[25:29] Cameron McEwen: That's from Take Today.

[25:31] Cameron McEwen: quoted by Bob Dobbs on page 88.

[25:35] Cameron McEwen: Then

[25:35] Cameron McEwen: Bob Dobbs quotes McLuhan from 1961,

[25:40] Cameron McEwen: The Humanities and the Electronic Age.

[25:42] Cameron McEwen: This is from Dobbs

[25:44] Cameron McEwen: 96.

[25:46] Cameron McEwen: Jet travel and satellite broadcasting will foster the grasp of languages,

[25:51] Cameron McEwen: ancient and modern,

[25:53] Cameron McEwen: in a simultaneous cultural transparency.

[25:58] Cameron McEwen: So in both of these things,

[26:00] Cameron McEwen: Okay.

[26:00] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan is talking about something that is eternal only in the sense of non-linear and simultaneous.

[26:11] Cameron McEwen: But Innis sense of the eternal,

[26:16] Cameron McEwen: there is a dynamic.

[26:19] Cameron McEwen: It's not that everything is still and always remains the same.

[26:23] Cameron McEwen: Instead,

[26:25] Cameron McEwen: just like in the physical sciences,

[26:27] Cameron McEwen: the physical world is complete.

[26:29] Cameron McEwen: completely dynamic and unstable,

[26:32] Cameron McEwen: and we can never predict,

[26:34] Cameron McEwen: you know,

[26:35] Cameron McEwen: what one weather front is going to transform into,

[26:39] Cameron McEwen: etc.,

[26:39] Cameron McEwen: etc.

[26:40] Cameron McEwen: But the laws that are underneath those transformations,

[26:44] Cameron McEwen: we can know and we can understand.

[26:47] Cameron McEwen: And that's the same with McLuhan.

[26:50] Cameron McEwen: It's not that there is no change.

[26:52] Cameron McEwen: It's that we have to understand change.

[26:55] Cameron McEwen: And when we understand change,

[26:57] Cameron McEwen: then the whole world can change.

[27:00] Cameron McEwen: Just as when we began to understand physical laws after Galileo and chemical laws after Lavoisier,

[27:09] Cameron McEwen: when we understand these things,

[27:11] Cameron McEwen: it changes everything.

[27:13] Cameron McEwen: But what doesn't change is what the laws are expressing.

[27:17] Cameron McEwen: So

[27:18] Cameron McEwen: Galileo's laws are brand new,

[27:21] Cameron McEwen: they're revolutionary,

[27:22] Cameron McEwen: but they're the way the world is,

[27:25] Cameron McEwen: and always has been and always will be.

[27:28] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[27:31] Bob Dobbs: the way the world is,

[27:32] Bob Dobbs: is that people ignore the import of Galileo's laws,

[27:37] Bob Dobbs: and they'll stick with religion or economics or drinking beer or something.

[27:43] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[27:43] Bob Dobbs: they don't...

[27:43] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[27:44] Cameron McEwen: you say that,

[27:45] Cameron McEwen: but,

[27:46] Cameron McEwen: well,

[27:46] Cameron McEwen: but,

[27:47] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[27:48] Cameron McEwen: we don't have a choice.

[27:49] Cameron McEwen: There's no...

[27:54] Cameron McEwen: What you're really saying is that we don't Ivins to the import.

[27:58] Cameron McEwen: implications of law.

[28:01] Cameron McEwen: And one of the things that

[28:04] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was most phatic about is that we don't have a choice when it comes to the technological developments of physical laws.

[28:18] Cameron McEwen: Those physical laws which eventuate,

[28:22] Cameron McEwen: for example,

[28:23] Cameron McEwen: in automobiles or planes or something like this,

[28:28] Cameron McEwen: Those transform the world,

[28:30] Cameron McEwen: and we do not have the choice of going back before Galileo and say,

[28:35] Cameron McEwen: okay,

[28:36] Cameron McEwen: now I'm going to live in the Renaissance.

[28:39] Cameron McEwen: That doesn't work.

[28:42] Bob Dobbs: Do you think that the laws of media and the laws McLuhan laid out are way more important than the laws of science and whatever you call the activity of lawmaking of the last 500 years?

[28:55] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[28:56] Cameron McEwen: they're more important to humans in the sense that if we end up destroying ourselves or even destroying the biosphere,

[29:06] Cameron McEwen: then our failure to understand ourselves is going to override physical laws,

[29:15] Cameron McEwen: unfortunately.

[29:17] Cameron McEwen: That's the potential doom.

[29:24] Cameron McEwen: that we're headed towards.

[29:26] Cameron McEwen: So the hope is that wisdom is going to prevail and we're going to accommodate ourselves to the facts of the world,

[29:37] Cameron McEwen: which include physical laws,

[29:39] Cameron McEwen: but also psychological laws.

[29:42] Cameron McEwen: And it was the latter.

[29:43] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[29:44] Cameron McEwen: the laws of media are the laws of psychological dynamics.

[29:51] Bob Dobbs: And sociological dynamics?

[29:55] Cameron McEwen: Yes,

[29:55] Cameron McEwen: but that's like saying that's the difference between chemistry and organic chemistry.

[30:05] Cameron McEwen: Those two can be conceived differently,

[30:08] Cameron McEwen: but they're intimately related.

[30:11] Cameron McEwen: Organic chemistry is another sort of chemistry that begins with a complication beyond simple chemistry.

[30:20] Cameron McEwen: And that's the same as psychology and sociology.

[30:25] Bob Dobbs: Psychology is more complicated?

[30:28] Cameron McEwen: No.

[30:29] Cameron McEwen: Psychology is...

[30:32] Bob Dobbs: We had organic and simple chemistry,

[30:36] Bob Dobbs: or something you said.

[30:37] Cameron McEwen: Both simple...

[30:41] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[30:43] Cameron McEwen: I don't think that the word simple necessarily goes with non-organic chemistry.

[30:50] Cameron McEwen: They're both very,

[30:51] Cameron McEwen: very complicated,

[30:53] Cameron McEwen: and the more we know about them...

[30:55] Cameron McEwen: the more we realize how complicated they Marchand how much we don't know about them.

[31:00] Cameron McEwen: And that's what drives research forward.

[31:05] Cameron McEwen: But it's not the case that chemistry and organic chemistry are the same.

[31:12] Cameron McEwen: They have different foci.

[31:16] Cameron McEwen: They have different ways of talking about their disciplines.

[31:23] Cameron McEwen: So...

[31:24] Cameron McEwen: And it's the same with psychology and sociology.

[31:27] Cameron McEwen: The sociology,

[31:28] Cameron McEwen: of course,

[31:30] Cameron McEwen: is not entirely separate from psychology.

[31:33] Cameron McEwen: It's just that psychology within sociology is very different from psychology considered on its own.

[31:43] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[31:43] Bob Dobbs: when you talk about interior landscape,

[31:45] Bob Dobbs: is that more psychology or is there a collective interior landscape?

[31:50] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[31:50] Cameron McEwen: there's both.

[31:51] Cameron McEwen: That's why...

[31:52] Cameron McEwen: That's why my blog is called McLuhan New

[31:55] Cameron McEwen: Sciences, plural.

[31:57] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[31:58] Bob Dobbs: So,

[32:09] Bob Dobbs: well,

[32:09] Bob Dobbs: we should try to figure out how to talk about this differently.

[32:13] Cameron McEwen: I agree with you.

[32:13] Cameron McEwen: So

[32:14] Cameron McEwen: I don't think it was a bad suggestion saying that we could switch roles.

[32:20] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[32:21] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[32:21] Bob Dobbs: Okay.

[32:21] Bob Dobbs: Anytime you want to do it.

[32:22] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[32:23] Bob Dobbs: you don't have to just keep start doing it and be it.

[32:27] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[32:27] Bob Dobbs: put me on.

[32:28] Bob Dobbs: Suddenly become me.

[32:29] Bob Dobbs: And I don't know when you're going to do it and say my stuff back to me.

[32:32] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[32:32] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[32:33] Cameron McEwen: we'll make an attempt in the rest of our conversation here.

[32:36] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[32:38] Cameron McEwen: As I see it,

[32:39] Cameron McEwen: one mask is science.

[32:43] Cameron McEwen: That is to say,

[32:44] Cameron McEwen: my mask is science.

[32:46] Cameron McEwen: And your mask is the history of science.

[32:49] Cameron McEwen: And those are...

[32:51] Cameron McEwen: two different things,

[32:53] Cameron McEwen: but they're,

[32:54] Cameron McEwen: of course,

[32:55] Cameron McEwen: they're closely related.

[32:57] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[32:58] Bob Dobbs: And your audience is literate at this point.

[33:05] Bob Dobbs: You're not presenting yourself in other media.

[33:08] Bob Dobbs: I present myself in post-literate media,

[33:12] Bob Dobbs: mainly.

[33:13] Bob Dobbs: I don't write as much as you do.

[33:16] Bob Dobbs: So there's a difference there.

[33:18] Bob Dobbs: We're addressing different...

[33:19] Bob Dobbs: audiences or different media on the formal causality level.

[33:27] Cameron McEwen: At the level of attempted causality.

[33:33] Cameron McEwen: Wright not to a particular audience because I don't think I have any audience.

[33:38] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[33:39] Bob Dobbs: So that's another dynamic there,

[33:41] Bob Dobbs: Al-Ghazali.

[33:42] Bob Dobbs: You're isolated and I'm not.

[33:46] Bob Dobbs: present well yeah there

[33:48] Cameron McEwen: We could talk a little bit about what it is to be isolated.

[33:54] Cameron McEwen: You can claim not to be isolated.

[34:00] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[34:01] Bob Dobbs: I think I have a bigger audience.

[34:02] Bob Dobbs: If you say you don't have much of an audience,

[34:04] Bob Dobbs: then I've got an audience.

[34:06] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[34:07] Cameron McEwen: but there's a difference between having an audience and having people that understand what you're talking about.

[34:18] Cameron McEwen: And in one sense,

[34:19] Cameron McEwen: I would even argue that one of the great things about you is that you talk beyond what you yourself understand.

[34:26] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[34:27] Bob Dobbs: that's right.

[34:28] Bob Dobbs: I'm not literal.

[34:30] Cameron McEwen: Correct.

[34:31] Cameron McEwen: There you go.

[34:33] Cameron McEwen: Now you're talking me.

[34:34] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[34:36] Bob Dobbs: I'm simultaneous.

[34:37] Bob Dobbs: You're literal.

[34:38] Bob Dobbs: You're always defining words in your column.

[34:44] Bob Dobbs: The...

[34:47] Bob Dobbs: Could we cliché to archetype each here?

[34:51] Bob Dobbs: See,

[34:53] Bob Dobbs: I'm complicated because I actually...

[34:57] Bob Dobbs: sell stuff that helps people,

[34:59] Bob Dobbs: really helps them in a new way.

[35:01] Bob Dobbs: You're not doing that.

[35:02] Bob Dobbs: So I have that extra experience which colors my understanding of McLuhan.

[35:08] Bob Dobbs: I'm a different person in relation to McLuhan now than 30 years ago.

[35:11] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[35:12] Bob Dobbs: And not just in terms of aging or something.

[35:15] Bob Dobbs: I'm engaged in something that's fantastic.

[35:18] Bob Dobbs: And

[35:19] Bob Dobbs: I think I told you Rothschild emailed me,

[35:22] Bob Dobbs: right?

[35:23] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[35:23] Bob Dobbs: yeah,

[35:23] Bob Dobbs: you heard that.

[35:24] Bob Dobbs: That was pretty interesting.

[35:26] Bob Dobbs: And there's follow-ups to that.

[35:28] Bob Dobbs: So now you could say,

[35:31] Bob Dobbs: well,

[35:31] Bob Dobbs: he's just another guy.

[35:32] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[35:32] Bob Dobbs: he's got a lot of money,

[35:33] Bob Dobbs: so what?

[35:34] Bob Dobbs: Or he's got this history,

[35:35] Bob Dobbs: and he advises the queen,

[35:36] Bob Dobbs: and she's the head of a religion,

[35:38] Bob Dobbs: so she's supposedly important.

[35:40] Bob Dobbs: But part of our society today is really,

[35:44] Bob Dobbs: literally,

[35:45] Bob Dobbs: people are not listening to each other.

[35:47] Bob Dobbs: They're not listening to anything,

[35:48] Bob Dobbs: to any institution.

[35:50] Bob Dobbs: Or they're determined to act that way,

[35:52] Bob Dobbs: right?

[35:53] Bob Dobbs: They're listening,

[35:54] Bob Dobbs: they're watching,

[35:54] Bob Dobbs: processing information,

[35:56] Bob Dobbs: but they're not acknowledging that they're going to be obedient to anything they hear about.

[36:02] Cameron McEwen: Right,

[36:02] Cameron McEwen: because ground has disappeared.

[36:06] Cameron McEwen: It's become evident to everybody what was evident to only a few,

[36:14] Cameron McEwen: 100 or 200 years ago,

[36:16] Cameron McEwen: namely that ground has dissolved.

[36:19] Bob Dobbs: Yes,

[36:20] Bob Dobbs: and that quote about 1965 that McLuhan says,

[36:24] Bob Dobbs: The average person or the electronic angel cannot get hypnotized by a medium like as happens in slower societies because there's too many mediums.

[36:38] Bob Dobbs: He's hopping from one to another,

[36:41] Bob Dobbs: so he's forever outside,

[36:42] Bob Dobbs: alienated or not falling into and accepting the conditioning of a service environment.

[36:52] Bob Dobbs: And he saw that's a service.

[36:54] Bob Dobbs: That's good.

[36:55] Bob Dobbs: So we have,

[36:57] Bob Dobbs: and this has been going on since 65,

[36:59] Bob Dobbs: he hyped up even more,

[37:01] Bob Dobbs: so that we have arrived at some kind of collective super,

[37:07] Bob Dobbs: well,

[37:07] Bob Dobbs: didn't he say that?

[37:08] Bob Dobbs: We're super civilized subatomic man.

[37:11] Bob Dobbs: We're super civilized,

[37:13] Bob Dobbs: super detached,

[37:13] Bob Dobbs: super involved.

[37:15] Bob Dobbs: But things catch us unawares,

[37:17] Bob Dobbs: and now all of a sudden we're in the middle of a street,

[37:19] Bob Dobbs: and we're walking down,

[37:20] Bob Dobbs: and somebody shoots us.

[37:21] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[37:22] Bob Dobbs: that's increasing.

[37:24] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[37:24] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan would never use the word super without knowing that that has to do with what is above.

[37:33] Cameron McEwen: You mean supra?

[37:36] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[37:36] Bob Dobbs: Supra.

[37:38] Cameron McEwen: Any super,

[37:39] Cameron McEwen: supra,

[37:40] Cameron McEwen: any word like that has to do with what's above.

[37:43] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[37:43] Cameron McEwen: And so then you get into a anti-environment and you get into an alienated mind.

[37:52] Cameron McEwen: that's alienated from ground.

[37:55] Cameron McEwen: So being super civilized means that you exist in a complex cultural situation where

[38:11] Cameron McEwen: that very complexity has dissolved the ground of each and every component culture within that complexity.

[38:20] Cameron McEwen: And that's where we are.

[38:23] Bob Dobbs: So when you say there's no ground,

[38:25] Bob Dobbs: there's no technological underpinning?

[38:28] Cameron McEwen: No,

[38:28] Cameron McEwen: let's remember.

[38:31] Cameron McEwen: Is that too literal?

[38:33] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[38:35] Cameron McEwen: When science understands something,

[38:38] Cameron McEwen: right?

[38:39] Cameron McEwen: Science always comes to understand something in history,

[38:43] Cameron McEwen: right?

[38:43] Cameron McEwen: So when Galileo understands physical laws,

[38:48] Cameron McEwen: he does so at a certain point in history.

[38:51] Cameron McEwen: But the physical laws that he understands do not have a history.

[38:56] Cameron McEwen: They are the way things are,

[38:59] Cameron McEwen: right?

[38:59] Cameron McEwen: Or they have a history only in the sense that,

[39:03] Cameron McEwen: you know,

[39:03] Cameron McEwen: ultimately they relate back to the birth of the universe,

[39:10] Cameron McEwen: the Big Bang and all that sort of stuff.

[39:11] Cameron McEwen: So they have a very complex history,

[39:14] Cameron McEwen: you could say.

[39:14] Cameron McEwen: But for normal purposes,

[39:17] Cameron McEwen: they have no history.

[39:19] Cameron McEwen: So when...

[39:21] Cameron McEwen: people lose their sense of ground for

[39:28] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan. What's going on there is itself an expression of ground.

[39:35] Cameron McEwen: So what McLuhan would say is,

[39:37] Cameron McEwen: look,

[39:41] Cameron McEwen: I can dance or I can feel fine on top of all of these personal,

[39:47] Cameron McEwen: familial,

[39:48] Cameron McEwen: societal um

[39:51] Cameron McEwen: cosmopolitan changes that are going on at every second.

[39:56] Cameron McEwen: And what I would like to teach you is this ability to dance on top of these changes.

[40:03] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[40:03] Bob Dobbs: the image of the surfer at the end of the medium is the massage.

[40:07] Cameron McEwen: Correct.

[40:12] Bob Dobbs: And he failed at that.

[40:14] Cameron McEwen: Yes,

[40:15] Cameron McEwen: he did.

[40:16] Cameron McEwen: But it's a great failure,

[40:20] Cameron McEwen: right?

[40:21] Cameron McEwen: Okay,

[40:21] Bob Dobbs: let's go into what is the audience of the failure,

[40:23] Bob Dobbs: what's anti-environment?

[40:24] Bob Dobbs: Because many people will say,

[40:27] Bob Dobbs: I got some insight from McLuhan.

[40:29] Bob Dobbs: He communicated something to me,

[40:30] Bob Dobbs: you know.

[40:31] Bob Dobbs: There's all these.

[40:33] Cameron McEwen: Congratulations.

[40:36] Bob Dobbs: Eccentric.

[40:37] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[40:37] Bob Dobbs: no,

[40:37] Bob Dobbs: they.

[40:38] Bob Dobbs: They,

[40:40] Bob Dobbs: what do people need?

[40:40] Bob Dobbs: Poise.

[40:41] Bob Dobbs: If something gives them poise,

[40:43] Bob Dobbs: then they've got poise,

[40:44] Bob Dobbs: then you can't argue about how they got there.

[40:46] Bob Dobbs: They got there,

[40:47] Bob Dobbs: and it worked.

[40:48] Bob Dobbs: And some people got that from McLuhan.

[40:51] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[40:52] Cameron McEwen: but then if you go down that road,

[40:55] Cameron McEwen: then you have to say that if the goal is poise,

[41:01] Cameron McEwen: then anybody who has poise has sort of got it.

[41:08] Cameron McEwen: Right,

[41:08] Cameron McEwen: so if you have your poise as a member of a country club,

[41:12] Cameron McEwen: or if you have your poise as a member of a teenage gang,

[41:17] Cameron McEwen: or if you have your,

[41:18] Cameron McEwen: right?

[41:19] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[41:20] Cameron McEwen: there's many,

[41:20] Cameron McEwen: many,

[41:21] Cameron McEwen: many different ways of having poise,

[41:24] Cameron McEwen: and most of them are ways of ignoring the wider context.

[41:29] Cameron McEwen: Most of them are a way of saying,

[41:33] Cameron McEwen: I'm going to put my feet here and forget about all the rest.

[41:37] Bob Dobbs: Right,

[41:37] Bob Dobbs: and McLuhan,

[41:38] Bob Dobbs: he was quite straightforward about it.

[41:40] Bob Dobbs: He says,

[41:41] Bob Dobbs: I'm into suffering.

[41:43] Bob Dobbs: His poise didn't mean he avoided suffering.

[41:46] Cameron McEwen: Correct,

[41:48] Cameron McEwen: correct.

[41:48] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[41:49] Bob Dobbs: he called it maybe a Christian thing.

[41:51] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[41:52] Cameron McEwen: well,

[41:52] Cameron McEwen: I think it was.

[41:53] Cameron McEwen: But remember that sometimes McLuhan would say,

[41:57] Cameron McEwen: oh,

[41:57] Cameron McEwen: I don't have any problems.

[41:58] Cameron McEwen: I've never suffered about anything.

[42:01] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[42:01] Bob Dobbs: I mean,

[42:03] Cameron McEwen: and so.

[42:05] Cameron McEwen: It would depend upon his audience.

[42:07] Cameron McEwen: It would depend upon what he was trying to convey.

[42:11] Cameron McEwen: But

[42:13] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan certainly saw the problem that we're talking about,

[42:17] Cameron McEwen: and that is that you can't overstress either side.

[42:21] Cameron McEwen: You can't overstress the suffering,

[42:24] Cameron McEwen: and you can't overstress the poise.

[42:26] Bob Dobbs: Right,

[42:26] Cameron McEwen: or the happiness.

[42:28] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[42:28] Cameron McEwen: there has to be the balance that we have been talking about And...

[42:34] Cameron McEwen: since you brought up the topic of balance

[42:39] Cameron McEwen: 15 or 20 minutes ago,

[42:42] Cameron McEwen: is a problematic balance,

[42:46] Cameron McEwen: because it's a balance that doesn't overlook the cultural and the psychological problems that are involved in balance.

[42:56] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[42:58] Bob Dobbs: when he talks to Nina Sutton,

[43:00] Bob Dobbs: he tends to dismiss it,

[43:02] Bob Dobbs: saying,

[43:02] Bob Dobbs: well,

[43:02] Bob Dobbs: no,

[43:02] Bob Dobbs: I've never been depressed.

[43:03] Bob Dobbs: never been unhappy he's saying those issues that people concerned about uh you know their private conscience are trivial to what he's looking at and they're so huge or so involving or so profound

[43:21] Cameron McEwen: it's beyond emotion it doesn't you don't have happiness in relation to that or said right but he he also says in the same uh long conversation that's actually conversations

[43:34] Cameron McEwen: plural with Nina.

[43:36] Cameron McEwen: He also says that when at the University of Manitoba,

[43:41] Cameron McEwen: he first began to look into

[43:43] Cameron McEwen: I.A. Richards and Elliott and all of these people,

[43:47] Cameron McEwen: that everything fell apart.

[43:49] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[43:50] Cameron McEwen: And he says,

[43:52] Cameron McEwen: I thought it was the end of everything.

[43:54] Cameron McEwen: So here's this guy saying,

[43:57] Cameron McEwen: I have no problems.

[43:58] Cameron McEwen: And also saying,

[44:03] Cameron McEwen: I,

[44:03] Cameron McEwen: I was completely lost,

[44:06] Cameron McEwen: and the whole great question is,

[44:08] Cameron McEwen: how do those work together,

[44:10] Cameron McEwen: right?

[44:10] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[44:11] Bob Dobbs: now,

[44:11] Bob Dobbs: but let's look at that.

[44:12] Bob Dobbs: So,

[44:12] Bob Dobbs: yeah,

[44:12] Bob Dobbs: he was completely lost,

[44:13] Bob Dobbs: but he wasn't running around,

[44:14] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[44:15] Bob Dobbs: Neurotica shoplifting to distract himself or something.

[44:18] Bob Dobbs: He just sat there looking at the horror and the abyss,

[44:22] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[44:22] Bob Dobbs: very quiet.

[44:23] Bob Dobbs: You wouldn't even know he was noticing it.

[44:25] Bob Dobbs: There's that level of Lou getting lost,

[44:28] Bob Dobbs: you know what I mean?

[44:29] Cameron McEwen: Right.

[44:29] Cameron McEwen: So he,

[44:30] Cameron McEwen: I forget where.

[44:31] Cameron McEwen: But recently I was reading something in McLuhan where he talks about the highbrow solution and the acting out solution.

[44:39] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[44:40] Bob Dobbs: yeah?

[44:40] Cameron McEwen: And he says that the highbrow solution is very,

[44:43] Cameron McEwen: very difficult and is impossible for most people.

[44:47] Cameron McEwen: But,

[44:47] Cameron McEwen: of course,

[44:47] Cameron McEwen: that was his solution,

[44:49] Cameron McEwen: the highbrow,

[44:50] Cameron McEwen: to sort of say,

[44:53] Cameron McEwen: well,

[44:53] Cameron McEwen: through very esoteric education,

[44:58] Cameron McEwen: it's possible to reach this balance.

[45:01] Cameron McEwen: But he says for most people,

[45:03] Cameron McEwen: if there's this acting out,

[45:04] Cameron McEwen: there's this,

[45:05] Cameron McEwen: I don't know what you call it,

[45:09] Cameron McEwen: you know,

[45:09] Cameron McEwen: finding practical solutions from moment to moment.

[45:12] Bob Dobbs: He called it reacting.

[45:13] Bob Dobbs: He said people were reacting rather than acting,

[45:17] Bob Dobbs: something like that.

[45:19] Cameron McEwen: He said Burroughs was reacting.

[45:22] Cameron McEwen: Right.

[45:22] Cameron McEwen: But reacting and acting,

[45:25] Cameron McEwen: they're both subject to psychological laws or the laws of media.

[45:32] Cameron McEwen: Right?

[45:32] Cameron McEwen: So it's not as if,

[45:34] Cameron McEwen: you know,

[45:34] Cameron McEwen: when he says I don't use value judgments,

[45:38] Cameron McEwen: if he says that people are reacting,

[45:40] Cameron McEwen: he's not saying,

[45:41] Cameron McEwen: oh,

[45:41] Cameron McEwen: that's bad.

[45:43] Cameron McEwen: He's saying...

[45:43] Cameron McEwen: go through your reaction to understand how it came about,

[45:50] Cameron McEwen: right?

[45:51] Cameron McEwen: Retrace the perception,

[45:53] Cameron McEwen: as he would say.

[45:54] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[45:54] Bob Dobbs: retrace the stages of apprehension.

[45:58] Cameron McEwen: Correct.

[46:00] Cameron McEwen: So everything in a certain sense is apprehension,

[46:04] Cameron McEwen: and the trick is to understand the stages whereby it came to be.

[46:11] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[46:12] Bob Dobbs: now...

[46:13] Bob Dobbs: It just occurred to me,

[46:14] Bob Dobbs: you never got to hang out with McLuhan.

[46:16] Bob Dobbs: The way he was just hanging out with people,

[46:19] Bob Dobbs: it was interesting.

[46:20] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[46:21] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[46:21] Cameron McEwen: remember,

[46:22] Cameron McEwen: I did meet him,

[46:23] Cameron McEwen: and our meeting was not particularly happy.

[46:26] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[46:26] Bob Dobbs: You're by yourself.

[46:28] Cameron McEwen: I did hang out.

[46:29] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[46:29] Cameron McEwen: no,

[46:30] Cameron McEwen: I also participated in graduate seminars,

[46:34] Cameron McEwen: a couple of graduate seminars in the afternoons.

[46:37] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[46:39] Bob Dobbs: I mean after,

[46:40] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[46:40] Bob Dobbs: in the restaurant.

[46:41] Cameron McEwen: Walking down the street.

[46:43] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[46:43] Cameron McEwen: no,

[46:43] Cameron McEwen: I never did that.

[46:45] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[46:46] Bob Dobbs: I don't know.

[46:48] Bob Dobbs: I didn't spend days and days and days like

[46:52] Bob Dobbs: George Thompson would work with him every day.

[46:54] Bob Dobbs: But

[46:55] Bob Dobbs: I did spend time with him a lot of different places outside of the Coach House.

[47:01] Bob Dobbs: And

[47:03] Bob Dobbs: I could have been projecting it,

[47:04] Bob Dobbs: but I always felt that this guy was observing.

[47:07] Bob Dobbs: Man,

[47:07] Bob Dobbs: was he watching.

[47:09] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[47:09] Bob Dobbs: I felt he was a big...

[47:10] Bob Dobbs: telescope I was walking beside,

[47:12] Bob Dobbs: you know what I mean?

[47:13] Bob Dobbs: Maybe because he was tall,

[47:15] Bob Dobbs: but it was emanating some kind of observing,

[47:19] Bob Dobbs: and this could have Berlin Wall my projections of knowing,

[47:22] Bob Dobbs: I'm thinking things that he said,

[47:24] Bob Dobbs: and I'm thinking about him saying,

[47:25] Bob Dobbs: well,

[47:25] Bob Dobbs: maybe I'll ask him about this,

[47:26] Bob Dobbs: you know?

[47:27] Bob Dobbs: I'm lost in his big statements,

[47:29] Bob Dobbs: so to speak,

[47:31] Bob Dobbs: and so I think he's in the same way,

[47:35] Bob Dobbs: but it's pretty hard to get inside someone else,

[47:37] Bob Dobbs: see what they're feeling as they're walking along.

[47:40] Bob Dobbs: other than surface things.

[47:41] Bob Dobbs: But my memory of it is there was almost not a body there.

[47:47] Bob Dobbs: It was an intelligence,

[47:48] Bob Dobbs: an awareness I was walking beside.

[47:50] Bob Dobbs: Do you know what I mean?

[47:51] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[47:52] Bob Dobbs: I didn't even notice what clothes he was wearing or anything.

[47:55] Cameron McEwen: Right.

[47:56] Cameron McEwen: So that's one way to...

[47:58] Bob Dobbs: How about you hung out with Thomas Kuhn?

[48:00] Bob Dobbs: Was it like that with him?

[48:02] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[48:03] Cameron McEwen: I wouldn't call it hung out with...

[48:07] Cameron McEwen: You didn't hang out with anybody.

[48:08] Cameron McEwen: Number one,

[48:09] Cameron McEwen: he wasn't the sort of guy that anybody could hang out with.

[48:14] Cameron McEwen: No way.

[48:15] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[48:15] Bob Dobbs: did you hang out with anybody?

[48:17] Bob Dobbs: You didn't of this kind of stature.

[48:20] Bob Dobbs: You just were students in relation to them.

[48:26] Cameron McEwen: No,

[48:28] Cameron McEwen: I wouldn't say that.

[48:29] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[48:29] Cameron McEwen: for example,

[48:31] Cameron McEwen: with

[48:32] Cameron McEwen: Professor Gadamer,

[48:35] Cameron McEwen: we were just good friends.

[48:38] Cameron McEwen: He was always the professor and

[48:41] Cameron McEwen: I was always the student in the sense of sort of giving way before his opinions and never arguing with him or something like that.

[48:53] Cameron McEwen: But we were good friends,

[48:58] Cameron McEwen: sat around in his office and had some drinks and had some laughs.

[49:07] Cameron McEwen: just enjoyed each other's company.

[49:10] Bob Dobbs: And where was that?

[49:11] Cameron McEwen: I was in Heidelberg,

[49:14] Cameron McEwen: in Germany.

[49:14] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[49:14] Bob Dobbs: you're talking about what is he known for?

[49:18] Bob Dobbs: Communitarianism.

[49:21] Cameron McEwen: Sorry?

[49:21] Bob Dobbs: Communitarianism,

[49:22] Bob Dobbs: right?

[49:23] Bob Dobbs: Isn't that the label for him?

[49:25] Bob Dobbs: He's a communitarian?

[49:28] Cameron McEwen: Maybe.

[49:28] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[49:29] Cameron McEwen: that certainly is not a mislabel,

[49:32] Cameron McEwen: but he was an expert in

[49:36] Cameron McEwen: hermeneutics.

[49:37] Cameron McEwen: He was an expert in,

[49:39] Cameron McEwen: he wrote extremely influential and deep books on Plato,

[49:45] Cameron McEwen: on Aristotle,

[49:46] Cameron McEwen: on Hegel.

[49:48] Cameron McEwen: He was a personal friend and student of Heidegger.

[49:53] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[49:53] Cameron McEwen: So,

[49:54] Cameron McEwen: and he knew

[49:57] Cameron McEwen: Jacques Derrida very well.

[49:59] Cameron McEwen: He debated Jacques Derrida in French.

[50:03] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[50:04] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was an amazing guy.

[50:06] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[50:07] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan,

[50:08] Cameron McEwen: Gadamer.

[50:11] Cameron McEwen: Gadamer and I always spoke in German because by the time I knew him,

[50:16] Cameron McEwen: he was already 90.

[50:18] Cameron McEwen: He remained very cogent until he was 101.

[50:22] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[50:22] Bob Dobbs: what years are these for you?

[50:24] Bob Dobbs: Where are you?

[50:25] Bob Dobbs: How old are you?

[50:28] Cameron McEwen: When I met

[50:29] Cameron McEwen: Gadamer, I was

[50:32] Cameron McEwen: 45.

[50:34] Bob Dobbs: So this is in the 80s?

[50:36] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[50:37] Cameron McEwen: at the end of the 80s I met him.

[50:38] Bob Dobbs: Why were you over there?

[50:41] Bob Dobbs: Were you a student?

[50:42] Cameron McEwen: No,

[50:43] Cameron McEwen: well I had been a student,

[50:44] Cameron McEwen: but in the late

[50:48] Cameron McEwen: 1980s I decided that

[50:51] Cameron McEwen: I had to know much more about Heidegger.

[50:55] Cameron McEwen: And that meant that I had to learn

[50:58] Cameron McEwen: German in a different way from what I knew before.

[51:03] Cameron McEwen: And so

[51:04] Cameron McEwen: I began to spend much more time in Germany and with ordinary people,

[51:11] Cameron McEwen: and especially in Meskirch,

[51:13] Cameron McEwen: which was where

[51:15] Cameron McEwen: Heidegger was born and where he is now buried.

[51:19] Cameron McEwen: So I got to know Meskirch very well,

[51:22] Cameron McEwen: and I got to know...

[51:24] Cameron McEwen: all kinds of people in Meskirch.

[51:26] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[51:27] Bob Dobbs: you did not live there for two or three years.

[51:29] Bob Dobbs: These are vacations,

[51:30] Bob Dobbs: right?

[51:32] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[51:32] Cameron McEwen: but I would go for a couple months at a time.

[51:35] Bob Dobbs: How did you do that?

[51:36] Bob Dobbs: Because you were freelancing?

[51:38] Bob Dobbs: You weren't in a regular salaried job?

[51:42] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[51:42] Cameron McEwen: well,

[51:43] Cameron McEwen: my whole life I've had jobs that I could continue to do my main work,

[51:51] Cameron McEwen: which was...

[51:52] Cameron McEwen: my writing and my reading.

[51:55] Bob Dobbs: Right,

[51:55] Bob Dobbs: so you had autonomy.

[51:57] Bob Dobbs: The kind of employment you had,

[51:59] Bob Dobbs: would you make sure that's what it was?

[52:01] Bob Dobbs: So,

[52:02] Bob Dobbs: all right,

[52:03] Bob Dobbs: so you spent many times with Gadamer.

[52:08] Bob Dobbs: Because I used to think that you went to philosophical symposia in Europe.

[52:14] Bob Dobbs: Yes,

[52:14] Cameron McEwen: I did.

[52:16] Cameron McEwen: I spent some summers doing that.

[52:20] Cameron McEwen: But then I...

[52:21] Cameron McEwen: stopped doing that in favor of spending more time in Germany and with people like Gadamer.

[52:29] Bob Dobbs: And you would attend classes of Gadamer's?

[52:33] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[52:33] Cameron McEwen: no.

[52:35] Cameron McEwen: Gadamer really didn't have regular classes by the time he was 90.

[52:41] Cameron McEwen: He had been,

[52:42] Cameron McEwen: he retired sometime in his

[52:49] Cameron McEwen: 60s.

[52:49] Cameron McEwen: I guess,

[52:50] Cameron McEwen: and then he began to teach in

[52:52] Cameron McEwen: Canada and the United States.

[52:54] Cameron McEwen: So typical story for Canada,

[52:57] Cameron McEwen: when

[52:58] Cameron McEwen: Gadamer first retired,

[53:01] Cameron McEwen: he came over and taught at McMaster.

[53:06] Cameron McEwen: And then the stupid people in McMaster basically kicked him out.

[53:13] Cameron McEwen: He wanted to stay at McMaster and would have been happy to stay at McMaster for years and years and years.

[53:19] Cameron McEwen: But no,

[53:19] Cameron McEwen: they got rid of him.

[53:21] Cameron McEwen: So then he went down and started teaching at

[53:25] Cameron McEwen: Boston College.

[53:28] Bob Dobbs: Where's that?

[53:29] Bob Dobbs: Where's that?

[53:29] Bob Dobbs: Gilson.

[53:30] Cameron McEwen: Gilson College.

[53:31] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[53:31] Bob Dobbs: Boston College.

[53:33] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[53:33] Bob Dobbs: they said Gilson.

[53:34] Bob Dobbs: Boston College.

[53:35] Bob Dobbs: So they kicked him out of there?

[53:38] Cameron McEwen: No,

[53:38] Cameron McEwen: no.

[53:39] Cameron McEwen: He continued there as long as he wanted to.

[53:42] Bob Dobbs: So what basis did McMaster do that,

[53:47] Bob Dobbs: kick him out?

[53:47] Bob Dobbs: No,

[53:47] Cameron McEwen: they just...

[53:48] Cameron McEwen: that

[53:50] Cameron McEwen: I'm sure it was a financial decision.

[53:54] Cameron McEwen: I used to have,

[53:55] Cameron McEwen: and probably still have somewhere,

[53:58] Cameron McEwen: some papers on this.

[53:59] Cameron McEwen: I wouldn't be able to locate them now.

[54:03] Cameron McEwen: If I ever find them again,

[54:04] Cameron McEwen: it'll just be happenstance.

[54:07] Cameron McEwen: But

[54:09] Cameron McEwen: I remember seeing some discussion of

[54:15] Cameron McEwen: Gadamer getting booted out of

[54:18] Cameron McEwen: McMaster,

[54:19] Cameron McEwen: maybe there's even stuff online.

[54:22] Cameron McEwen: But people,

[54:25] Cameron McEwen: there were people that at McMaster were saying,

[54:28] Cameron McEwen: what are you doing?

[54:29] Cameron McEwen: This is the smartest guy we have at our faculty.

[54:33] Cameron McEwen: You'd have to be idiots to get,

[54:35] Cameron McEwen: no,

[54:35] Cameron McEwen: no,

[54:35] Cameron McEwen: we're going to get rid of it.

[54:38] Bob Dobbs: This is Canada.

[54:39] Cameron McEwen: They did that with,

[54:41] Cameron McEwen: Canadians did that with

[54:43] Cameron McEwen: Jill Soon in Toronto.

[54:45] Cameron McEwen: They did it with,

[54:46] Cameron McEwen: there's,

[54:47] Cameron McEwen: You could create an all-star team of great intellects that were in Canada,

[54:53] Cameron McEwen: and they got booted out either by their own institutions or by the Canadian Revenue Authority by raising their taxes so high that they couldn't stay.

[55:05] Cameron McEwen: Eric Havelock is another guy.

[55:07] Cameron McEwen: He got literally booted out of Canada.

[55:10] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[55:11] Bob Dobbs: let's say a modern one is Dr.

[55:14] Bob Dobbs: Carolyn Dean.

[55:17] Bob Dobbs: It's a great physician,

[55:18] Bob Dobbs: the greatest doctor in Canada.

[55:20] Bob Dobbs: She got booted out indirectly.

[55:22] Bob Dobbs: She left,

[55:23] Bob Dobbs: and then while she was away,

[55:24] Bob Dobbs: they said,

[55:25] Bob Dobbs: fuck you,

[55:25] Bob Dobbs: and they booted her out.

[55:26] Bob Dobbs: She wasn't even there anymore.

[55:30] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[55:30] Cameron McEwen: They did it.

[55:32] Cameron McEwen: Go ahead.

[55:33] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[55:34] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[55:34] Cameron McEwen: the brain drain out of Canada is just colossal.

[55:42] Cameron McEwen: And

[55:43] Cameron McEwen: Canadians just sort of go along their merry way supplying it.

[55:49] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[55:49] Cameron McEwen: look at hockey players,

[55:50] Cameron McEwen: for example.

[55:52] Cameron McEwen: You know,

[55:52] Cameron McEwen: hockey players just got exported and exported and exported from Canada.

[55:59] Cameron McEwen: And eventually the United States...

[56:01] Cameron McEwen: States national team had sons of players that had been on the

[56:08] Cameron McEwen: Canadian national team.

[56:10] Cameron McEwen: And that sort of thing happened over and over and over again in the intellectual history of Canada slash United States.

[56:21] Cameron McEwen: So Kenneth Galbraith,

[56:22] Cameron McEwen: for example.

[56:23] Cameron McEwen: And,

[56:24] Cameron McEwen: you know,

[56:24] Cameron McEwen: just so many people.

[56:26] Cameron McEwen: Alexander Graham Bell,

[56:27] Cameron McEwen: another example.

[56:29] Bob Dobbs: Do you...

[56:30] Bob Dobbs: Arthur Kroker,

[56:31] Bob Dobbs: I just finished his latest book,

[56:33] Bob Dobbs: he makes a big deal out of Canada.

[56:35] Bob Dobbs: He believes in,

[56:36] Bob Dobbs: there's some services to the Canadian temperament and features,

[56:40] Bob Dobbs: whatever,

[56:41] Bob Dobbs: Canadian-ness,

[56:42] Bob Dobbs: that he says are worth preserving,

[56:44] Bob Dobbs: and he sort of is trying to create an intellectual center,

[56:48] Bob Dobbs: based on the Toronto School,

[56:50] Bob Dobbs: he would say,

[56:52] Bob Dobbs: and he would be the quote,

[56:54] Bob Dobbs: head of it.

[56:57] Bob Dobbs: Would you say that may not be possible in Canada anymore?

[57:02] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[57:02] Cameron McEwen: I hope it is possible.

[57:05] Cameron McEwen: I completely agree with Kroker that it's something that should be done.

[57:09] Cameron McEwen: On the other hand,

[57:11] Cameron McEwen: when I got in touch with Kroker and said,

[57:15] Cameron McEwen: listen,

[57:15] Cameron McEwen: I'll come up to Victoria and just try to understand more about these goals of yours,

[57:24] Cameron McEwen: with which I agree.

[57:25] Cameron McEwen: He said,

[57:25] Cameron McEwen: oh,

[57:26] Cameron McEwen: no,

[57:26] Cameron McEwen: I'm too busy.

[57:27] Cameron McEwen: I can't talk to you.

[57:31] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[57:31] Cameron McEwen: what kind of Canadianism is that?

[57:34] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[57:35] Bob Dobbs: when did this happen?

[57:35] Bob Dobbs: I never knew this.

[57:37] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[57:38] Cameron McEwen: well,

[57:38] Cameron McEwen: I think,

[57:39] Cameron McEwen: didn't something similar happen with you?

[57:40] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[57:41] Cameron McEwen: yeah.

[57:42] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[57:43] Bob Dobbs: Kroker ignores me as any opportunity he can get.

[57:47] Bob Dobbs: But when did this happen to you?

[57:49] Bob Dobbs: When were you interested in Kroker?

[57:52] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[57:52] Cameron McEwen: this would have been in the

[57:54] Cameron McEwen: 90s, maybe.

[57:57] Cameron McEwen: Before me and Mark met you?

[57:58] Bob Dobbs: Before 98?

[58:03] Cameron McEwen: I really don't know.

[58:06] Cameron McEwen: Probably in the 1995-2005 decade in there.

[58:13] Cameron McEwen: But off the top of my head,

[58:15] Cameron McEwen: I can't specify it further.

[58:17] Bob Dobbs: What were you reading?

[58:19] Bob Dobbs: Do you have any particular books that struck you?

[58:22] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[58:22] Cameron McEwen: definitely,

[58:23] Cameron McEwen: definitely.

[58:24] Cameron McEwen: I like the stuff that he was doing back in the

[58:28] Cameron McEwen: 1980s.

[58:30] Cameron McEwen: You like his stuff on panic and things falling apart and all that sort of stuff.

[58:35] Bob Dobbs: You like McLuhan in his grant.

[58:38] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[58:39] Bob Dobbs: And the postmodern scene.

[58:40] Bob Dobbs: It talks about Augustine.

[58:42] Cameron McEwen: I like,

[58:43] Cameron McEwen: yeah,

[58:43] Cameron McEwen: yeah.

[58:44] Cameron McEwen: I like his long essay on Charles Cochrane.

[58:48] Cameron McEwen: Yes,

[58:48] Bob Dobbs: I was just going to say that.

[58:50] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[58:50] Bob Dobbs: he adds Cochrane and McPherson to the Toronto School,

[58:53] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[58:54] Bob Dobbs: laying it straight.

[58:55] Bob Dobbs: Those guys,

[58:55] Bob Dobbs: Logan,

[58:56] Bob Dobbs: they don't do that.

[58:56] Bob Dobbs: They don't know it.

[58:57] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[58:58] Cameron McEwen: And I agree with him very much on that.

[59:01] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[59:02] Cameron McEwen: I think they're important people in the Toronto School.

[59:05] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[59:06] Bob Dobbs: So that's very interesting.

[59:09] Bob Dobbs: It's timely that we bring this up now because I just read Kroker,

[59:13] Bob Dobbs: and I'm going to start doing a series.

[59:14] Bob Dobbs: I'm going to go through his book with,

[59:16] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[59:16] Bob Dobbs: Clinton and them in office hours.

[59:18] Bob Dobbs: and

[59:19] Bob Dobbs: We did it today.

[59:20] Bob Dobbs: It'll pile up the hours,

[59:21] Bob Dobbs: and then I'm going to send it to Arthur.

[59:23] Bob Dobbs: It'll be

[59:24] Bob Dobbs: 50 hours on his book or something.

[59:27] Bob Dobbs: I don't know really how long it'll be,

[59:29] Bob Dobbs: but it'll be more than three hours.

[59:31] Bob Dobbs: So that's very interesting that you,

[59:34] Bob Dobbs: I didn't know you had a familiarity with Kroker and that you had looked at him and actually wanted to go and hang out with him.

[59:41] Bob Dobbs: You were proposing that you'd live there.

[59:44] Bob Dobbs: He wouldn't have to pay you or anything.

[59:46] Bob Dobbs: But you'd be hanging out with his scene,

[59:47] Bob Dobbs: right?

[59:47] Cameron McEwen: No,

[59:48] Cameron McEwen: no.

[59:48] Cameron McEwen: Okay.

[59:48] Cameron McEwen: I wasn't proposing that I live there.

[59:51] Cameron McEwen: First,

[59:51] Cameron McEwen: you have to understand that most of my family lives in the Vancouver area.

[59:59] Cameron McEwen: In those days,

[1:00:00] Cameron McEwen: my sister and brothers' broil and nieces lived in Victoria.

[1:00:07] Cameron McEwen: And so I used to go to Victoria all the time anyway.

[1:00:10] Cameron McEwen: And so what I said to Kroker is,

[1:00:12] Cameron McEwen: look,

[1:00:12] Cameron McEwen: I'm very interested in your work,

[1:00:15] Cameron McEwen: especially your work on

[1:00:17] Cameron McEwen: Cochrane and

[1:00:19] Cameron McEwen: Innis and Grant and these people.

[1:00:22] Cameron McEwen: So next time I'm in

[1:00:25] Cameron McEwen: Victoria, what I would like to do is make an appointment and come by and speak to you.

[1:00:30] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[1:00:31] Cameron McEwen: no,

[1:00:31] Cameron McEwen: I'm far too busy.

[1:00:32] Bob Dobbs: That's crazy.

[1:00:35] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:00:36] Cameron McEwen: that's Canadianism.

[1:00:37] Cameron McEwen: for you.

[1:00:37] Bob Dobbs: I don't know what,

[1:00:38] Bob Dobbs: no,

[1:00:38] Bob Dobbs: that's Kroker.

[1:00:39] Bob Dobbs: But how is that Canadian?

[1:00:40] Bob Dobbs: No,

[1:00:41] Cameron McEwen: but what I'm saying is,

[1:00:43] Cameron McEwen: what's very Canadian is somebody has an idea about Canada,

[1:00:48] Cameron McEwen: and it's an idea about communalism and being a good person and all that sort of stuff.

[1:00:54] Cameron McEwen: And then you say,

[1:00:54] Cameron McEwen: oh,

[1:00:55] Cameron McEwen: great,

[1:00:56] Cameron McEwen: I agree with you completely.

[1:00:58] Cameron McEwen: Let's have a communal meeting.

[1:00:59] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[1:01:00] Cameron McEwen: no,

[1:01:00] Bob Dobbs: I can't do that.

[1:01:03] Bob Dobbs: Jeez,

[1:01:03] Bob Dobbs: that's ridiculous.

[1:01:04] Bob Dobbs: But that's Kroker.

[1:01:08] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:01:08] Bob Dobbs: I mean,

[1:01:08] Bob Dobbs: the last time

[1:01:10] Bob Dobbs: I was going to be coming over and take a chance to drop in,

[1:01:13] Bob Dobbs: oh no,

[1:01:14] Bob Dobbs: Marilouise's mother is dying,

[1:01:15] Bob Dobbs: we have to deal with her mother.

[1:01:18] Bob Dobbs: He was scraping the barrel for excuses,

[1:01:20] Cameron McEwen: you know.

[1:01:23] Bob Dobbs: He's not a doctor.

[1:01:25] Bob Dobbs: Maybe they have to nurse her or something or hang around her,

[1:01:27] Bob Dobbs: but that was his last alibi.

[1:01:31] Cameron McEwen: In my case,

[1:01:32] Cameron McEwen: he didn't even bother to say that there was any kind of excuse.

[1:01:37] Cameron McEwen: He simply said,

[1:01:38] Cameron McEwen: no,

[1:01:38] Cameron McEwen: no,

[1:01:39] Cameron McEwen: I don't have the time to talk to people,

[1:01:41] Cameron McEwen: something like that.

[1:01:42] Cameron McEwen: And then you have to say,

[1:01:45] Cameron McEwen: well,

[1:01:45] Cameron McEwen: you know,

[1:01:46] Cameron McEwen: he's got this center,

[1:01:47] Cameron McEwen: and he's working with these students.

[1:01:50] Cameron McEwen: You know,

[1:01:51] Cameron McEwen: how can you work with people if you don't talk to them and meet with them?

[1:01:54] Bob Dobbs: Right,

[1:01:54] Bob Dobbs: and deal with the effects of other people being interested in it.

[1:01:57] Bob Dobbs: I mean,

[1:01:58] Bob Dobbs: Marshall McLuhan was good at that.

[1:01:59] Bob Dobbs: He met all kinds of people.

[1:02:01] Bob Dobbs: Back in the early

[1:02:02] Bob Dobbs: 70s, you go to his coaches,

[1:02:03] Bob Dobbs: man,

[1:02:03] Bob Dobbs: it was packed all the time.

[1:02:05] Bob Dobbs: of strangers wanting to talk to him,

[1:02:07] Bob Dobbs: you know?

[1:02:07] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:02:08] Bob Dobbs: And he might feel harassed,

[1:02:11] Bob Dobbs: but he did it.

[1:02:13] Bob Dobbs: And so Kroker like you.

[1:02:18] Bob Dobbs: He Wright for himself,

[1:02:19] Bob Dobbs: but all of a sudden it got out there and people responded,

[1:02:22] Bob Dobbs: oh,

[1:02:23] Bob Dobbs: no,

[1:02:23] Bob Dobbs: no,

[1:02:23] Bob Dobbs: no,

[1:02:23] Bob Dobbs: I'm just doing this for myself.

[1:02:27] Cameron McEwen: But I would,

[1:02:28] Cameron McEwen: well,

[1:02:29] Cameron McEwen: I may be isolated,

[1:02:33] Cameron McEwen: and I think far more.

[1:02:34] Cameron McEwen: isolated in one sense than Kroker i mean Kroker famous and gets awards and travels around the world yeah people tell them how smart he is none of which is is true of me but on the other hand um if anybody wants to speak to me um

[1:02:52] Cameron McEwen: or meet with me or go for a beer with me or something i have no problem with that and you'll make time for them nothing's going to get in the way of that of course yeah well that's pretty funny um

[1:03:08] Bob Dobbs: So,

[1:03:09] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:03:09] Bob Dobbs: is there something peculiar about Canada?

[1:03:11] Bob Dobbs: Remember McLuhan used to say that Canada had a philosophical relationship to the global theater because they live right beside its efficient engine,

[1:03:18] Bob Dobbs: America.

[1:03:19] Bob Dobbs: So they had a close-up view of it.

[1:03:22] Bob Dobbs: They're like a neighbor,

[1:03:22] Bob Dobbs: so they hear all the fights in the middle of the night,

[1:03:25] Bob Dobbs: but they are not part of it.

[1:03:28] Bob Dobbs: So their sons don't have to go to Vietnam and all that crisis.

[1:03:31] Bob Dobbs: So they...

[1:03:33] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[1:03:33] Cameron McEwen: that was in the old days.

[1:03:35] Cameron McEwen: Now they're over in Ukraine wearing American flags and American ideas.

[1:03:42] Bob Dobbs: Did you hear about that?

[1:03:43] Cameron McEwen: Canada sold itself out long ago.

[1:03:46] Bob Dobbs: Yes.

[1:03:49] Bob Dobbs: Somebody was telling me this tonight.

[1:03:52] Bob Dobbs: The Canadian general was holed up with the Nazis in

[1:03:57] Bob Dobbs: Mariupol or whatever,

[1:03:58] Bob Dobbs: however you ever say that.

[1:03:59] Bob Dobbs: And he tried to escape and got caught by the Russians.

[1:04:02] Bob Dobbs: Now he's in Moscow,

[1:04:03] Bob Dobbs: a high Canadian general.

[1:04:06] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:04:06] Cameron McEwen: nobody quite knows what the story is there.

[1:04:11] Cameron McEwen: That's more at the level of rumor.

[1:04:13] Bob Dobbs: Right,

[1:04:13] Bob Dobbs: and also he got kicked out of the Canadian Navy Army,

[1:04:17] Bob Dobbs: whatever he was in.

[1:04:19] Bob Dobbs: He's a renegade.

[1:04:22] Cameron McEwen: The amazing thing about that story,

[1:04:24] Cameron McEwen: which isn't a rumor,

[1:04:26] Cameron McEwen: is that he actually got named the head of the Canadian

[1:04:31] Cameron McEwen: Armed Forces.

[1:04:32] Cameron McEwen: and then had to resign.

[1:04:34] Bob Dobbs: And we don't know why he had to resign.

[1:04:37] Cameron McEwen: No,

[1:04:37] Cameron McEwen: no,

[1:04:37] Cameron McEwen: we do.

[1:04:38] Cameron McEwen: We do.

[1:04:40] Cameron McEwen: There were reports of sexual misconduct at

[1:04:47] Cameron McEwen: Royal Roads.

[1:04:48] Bob Dobbs: The eternal verities,

[1:04:50] Bob Dobbs: the eternal causes.

[1:04:52] Cameron McEwen: That's right,

[1:04:52] Cameron McEwen: that's right.

[1:04:54] Cameron McEwen: But

[1:04:54] Cameron McEwen: I believe the stories had to do with Royal Roads,

[1:04:57] Cameron McEwen: and the interesting thing about that...

[1:04:59] Cameron McEwen: ...is that we're talking about Kroker in Victoria and Royal Roads is in Victoria.

[1:05:04] Bob Dobbs: Ah,

[1:05:05] Bob Dobbs: we can't get out of D.C.

[1:05:06] Bob Dobbs: tonight.

[1:05:07] Bob Dobbs: And even though we find out you go there,

[1:05:09] Bob Dobbs: you live there sort of indirectly through your relatives.

[1:05:14] Cameron McEwen: Right.

[1:05:15] Bob Dobbs: And why are they there?

[1:05:16] Bob Dobbs: You guys all came from Regina,

[1:05:18] Bob Dobbs: right?

[1:05:20] Cameron McEwen: Yes,

[1:05:20] Cameron McEwen: but my sister,

[1:05:25] Cameron McEwen: whose birthday it is today,

[1:05:27] Cameron McEwen: by the way,

[1:05:30] Cameron McEwen: my sister married a great guy up in Kitimat,

[1:05:37] Cameron McEwen: British Columbia,

[1:05:38] Cameron McEwen: which is up north.

[1:05:39] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:05:40] Cameron McEwen: by the um

[1:05:43] Cameron McEwen: what used to be called the Queen Charlotte Islands,

[1:05:45] Cameron McEwen: close to the border with Alaska,

[1:05:48] Cameron McEwen: actually.

[1:05:48] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:05:49] Cameron McEwen: And,

[1:05:50] Cameron McEwen: yeah,

[1:05:50] Cameron McEwen: so they lived up there for many years,

[1:05:52] Cameron McEwen: and I used to visit them there regularly.

[1:05:56] Cameron McEwen: And on one particularly happy occasion,

[1:06:00] Cameron McEwen: we went out to the Queen Charlotte and had a highly interesting two weeks out there exploring the islands.

[1:06:12] Cameron McEwen: So then eventually they moved from

[1:06:15] Cameron McEwen: Kitimat down to

[1:06:17] Cameron McEwen: Vancouver Island.

[1:06:18] Cameron McEwen: And of course,

[1:06:19] Cameron McEwen: I continued to visit them there.

[1:06:22] Cameron McEwen: And then they moved over to

[1:06:26] Cameron McEwen: Vancouver because both of their daughters were employed in

[1:06:31] Cameron McEwen: Vancouver.

[1:06:33] Cameron McEwen: And that's where they live now.

[1:06:35] Cameron McEwen: So that's one side of my family.

[1:06:37] Cameron McEwen: And then another sister.

[1:06:40] Cameron McEwen: also lives in

[1:06:41] Cameron McEwen: Vancouver.

[1:06:43] Cameron McEwen: So I have a brother in Calgary,

[1:06:46] Cameron McEwen: and his boys also live in Calgary.

[1:06:49] Cameron McEwen: But the rest of my family is all in Vancouver.

[1:06:53] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[1:06:54] Bob Dobbs: so

[1:06:56] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan says in that 1970 CBC interview,

[1:07:00] Bob Dobbs: I remember seeing it,

[1:07:03] Bob Dobbs: I think that's one of the first times he said,

[1:07:05] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:07:06] Bob Dobbs: the TV generation.

[1:07:07] Bob Dobbs: the Baby Boomers were wandering gypsy scholars.

[1:07:11] Bob Dobbs: That's me and you.

[1:07:12] Bob Dobbs: I didn't know that about you,

[1:07:13] Bob Dobbs: but we're wandering gypsy scholars.

[1:07:15] Bob Dobbs: We go all over the place.

[1:07:17] Cameron McEwen: I agree with that.

[1:07:18] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:07:20] Cameron McEwen: And wandering gypsy scholars actually is one characterization of everybody.

[1:07:29] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:07:30] Cameron McEwen: So you could think of

[1:07:33] Cameron McEwen: Ulysses with Bloom Sanderson.

[1:07:36] Cameron McEwen: Stephen wandering around the city.

[1:07:39] Cameron McEwen: They're wandering in completely different ways and they sort of crisscross each other at different points,

[1:07:46] Cameron McEwen: but they are both wanderers.

[1:07:49] Cameron McEwen: And what is it to wander?

[1:07:53] Cameron McEwen: As

[1:07:54] Cameron McEwen: Joyce shows in Ulysses,

[1:07:57] Cameron McEwen: you can conceive wandering as different ideas sort of sparking all the time.

[1:08:06] Cameron McEwen: And so instead of wandering being something through space or even through time,

[1:08:13] Cameron McEwen: you can conceive of wandering as what the human subject,

[1:08:20] Cameron McEwen: the human individual does through time and space.

[1:08:27] Cameron McEwen: They spark different ideas and that sparking is what human being is all about.

[1:08:35] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:08:36] Bob Dobbs: And,

[1:08:37] Bob Dobbs: yeah,

[1:08:37] Bob Dobbs: and you're not necessarily moving.

[1:08:39] Bob Dobbs: Correct.

[1:08:40] Bob Dobbs: So you and I have,

[1:08:41] Bob Dobbs: we spend a lot of time by ourselves Vincent Sherry studying visual space or bouncing off visual space if we're using books and that and reading.

[1:08:52] Bob Dobbs: And we do it with not much any peer pressure.

[1:08:56] Bob Dobbs: We're not in any organization where you've got to perform.

[1:09:00] Bob Dobbs: So that's the ideal way to be,

[1:09:02] Bob Dobbs: we're doing the.

[1:09:05] Bob Dobbs: the most fun way to learn or to experience.

[1:09:10] Cameron McEwen: But I wouldn't say that,

[1:09:12] Cameron McEwen: at least in my case,

[1:09:13] Cameron McEwen: and I believe also in your case,

[1:09:14] Cameron McEwen: I wouldn't say that there's no pressure to perform.

[1:09:19] Cameron McEwen: It's just that the context in which we wish to perform is not a defined context.

[1:09:30] Bob Dobbs: It's not a paid situation.

[1:09:33] Cameron McEwen: Correct.

[1:09:33] Cameron McEwen: So anytime you have a defined context,

[1:09:37] Cameron McEwen: it's not terribly difficult to perform.

[1:09:40] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:09:42] Cameron McEwen: Because the rules are set.

[1:09:43] Cameron McEwen: It's like playing a card game or something.

[1:09:45] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:09:46] Cameron McEwen: But when you remove the rules of performance and you say,

[1:09:51] Cameron McEwen: okay,

[1:09:52] Cameron McEwen: now let's see how you can perform absent rules.

[1:09:56] Cameron McEwen: Now you're talking about something that's difficult.

[1:10:00] Bob Dobbs: And what's an example of that?

[1:10:03] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[1:10:04] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[1:10:04] Cameron McEwen: I would say that that's what we do,

[1:10:06] Cameron McEwen: you and I,

[1:10:07] Cameron McEwen: and what many people have done throughout history.

[1:10:14] Cameron McEwen: And the reason that that is done by some people in society is that ultimately death and sickness and craziness

[1:10:31] Cameron McEwen: and war,

[1:10:33] Cameron McEwen: these things destroy context.

[1:10:36] Cameron McEwen: And Posthuman society is dependent upon wanderers,

[1:10:40] Cameron McEwen: people that go beyond defined context to redefine and to retrieve human solidarity in the face of these recurrent collapses.

[1:10:57] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:10:57] Bob Dobbs: that would be living without ground or noticing the ground and how it changes.

[1:11:02] Bob Dobbs: Not identifying,

[1:11:03] Bob Dobbs: holding on to any ground changes.

[1:11:06] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:11:06] Cameron McEwen: or seeing that ground is something that it's not like literal earthly ground.

[1:11:15] Cameron McEwen: It's something that has to do with death,

[1:11:19] Cameron McEwen: has to do with collapse,

[1:11:22] Cameron McEwen: has to do with meaninglessness.

[1:11:25] Cameron McEwen: So it's a very difficult kind of ground,

[1:11:29] Cameron McEwen: but it's what human maturity comes to terms with.

[1:11:33] Bob Dobbs: Right,

[1:11:33] Bob Dobbs: so let's go to 97.

[1:11:38] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:11:38] Cameron McEwen: we haven't gone too far.

[1:11:40] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:11:40] Bob Dobbs: you distracted me with those earlier quotes.

[1:11:43] Bob Dobbs: I don't know what you were illustrating,

[1:11:46] Bob Dobbs: but it was relevant within the minutes of the subject.

[1:11:48] Cameron McEwen: I was illustrating the fact that McLuhan was ultimately not interested in history or in tactility.

[1:11:56] Cameron McEwen: He was interested in what's below that.

[1:12:00] Bob Dobbs: he would write

[1:12:03] Bob Dobbs: to put things into a lineal order,

[1:12:07] Bob Dobbs: maybe one-third lineal order.

[1:12:11] Bob Dobbs: When you're writing,

[1:12:12] Bob Dobbs: you're doing linearity.

[1:12:15] Cameron McEwen: That's right.

[1:12:19] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan wasn't saying that there is no change.

[1:12:24] Cameron McEwen: He was saying there is change,

[1:12:26] Cameron McEwen: and the point is to understand it.

[1:12:28] Cameron McEwen: So in physical science,

[1:12:30] Cameron McEwen: it would be ridiculous to say...

[1:12:32] Cameron McEwen: I'm doing chemistry,

[1:12:33] Cameron McEwen: but I don't have anything to do with physical materials.

[1:12:37] Cameron McEwen: That's nuts.

[1:12:38] Cameron McEwen: And so similarly with McLuhan,

[1:12:40] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan,

[1:12:40] Cameron McEwen: of course,

[1:12:41] Cameron McEwen: was very interested in change and in history and all that sort of stuff.

[1:12:48] Cameron McEwen: What he was trying to show was that there are laws to these changes that we can understand.

[1:12:55] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[1:12:55] Bob Dobbs: So that's right what I was reading into.

[1:12:58] Bob Dobbs: Now at 69.

[1:13:00] Bob Dobbs: You've had a lot of convulsive changes that McLuhan referring to.

[1:13:03] Bob Dobbs: There were hardly any convulsive changes in 65,

[1:13:06] Bob Dobbs: but in 69 there were.

[1:13:07] Bob Dobbs: Americans had been traumatized and shocked.

[1:13:09] Bob Dobbs: There's a book called 1968,

[1:13:12] Bob Dobbs: and the author documents what satellite TV,

[1:13:14] Bob Dobbs: which came in that year,

[1:13:15] Bob Dobbs: did to people.

[1:13:17] Bob Dobbs: Then I bring in a McLuhan quote.

[1:13:19] Bob Dobbs: Playboy says,

[1:13:19] Bob Dobbs: how?

[1:13:20] Bob Dobbs: And McLuhan says,

[1:13:22] Bob Dobbs: probably about how he'd do the services of the automations.

[1:13:26] Bob Dobbs: So he said that the computer can be used to direct the network of global thermostats to pattern life in ways that will optimize human awareness.

[1:13:35] Bob Dobbs: Already,

[1:13:35] Bob Dobbs: it's technologically feasible to employ the computer to program societies in beneficial ways.

[1:13:40] Bob Dobbs: Playboy,

[1:13:41] Bob Dobbs: how do you program an entire society,

[1:13:43] Bob Dobbs: beneficially or otherwise?

[1:13:45] Bob Dobbs: So then I come in with the blue bob and oral commentary.

[1:13:50] Bob Dobbs: This is the time in the 60s when people are thinking they're free.

[1:13:54] Bob Dobbs: They aren't interested in being programmed.

[1:13:56] Bob Dobbs: That's like fascism.

[1:13:57] Bob Dobbs: Norden can't believe what McLuhan saying.

[1:14:00] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan pushing this programming.

[1:14:02] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan very detached when he's saying it.

[1:14:04] Bob Dobbs: He proclaimed it,

[1:14:05] Bob Dobbs: and people read it,

[1:14:06] Bob Dobbs: and exclaimed,

[1:14:07] Bob Dobbs: quote,

[1:14:07] Bob Dobbs: there's a cold tone to McLuhan that's frightening.

[1:14:09] Bob Dobbs: This guy is so nuts.

[1:14:11] Bob Dobbs: He's trying to turn Orwell into an art form as if it's acceptable.

[1:14:15] Bob Dobbs: I just made that up,

[1:14:16] Bob Dobbs: right?

[1:14:17] Bob Dobbs: But I heard approximates and complaints like that.

[1:14:22] Bob Dobbs: And McLuhan knew that he was having that effect.

[1:14:24] Bob Dobbs: It was a level of a satire.

[1:14:26] Bob Dobbs: But he was pointing out really what was happening.

[1:14:28] Bob Dobbs: The economy was programmed by the banks at that point.

[1:14:31] Bob Dobbs: People didn't have any updated thinking mechanism for it.

[1:14:34] Bob Dobbs: They didn't have any models for The Coming Race virtual economy.

[1:14:37] Bob Dobbs: Virtual in quotes.

[1:14:39] Bob Dobbs: So then now we quote McLuhan.

[1:14:41] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:14:41] Cameron McEwen: yeah.

[1:14:41] Cameron McEwen: But let's go over this because this is important and complicated stuff.

[1:14:48] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[1:14:48] Cameron McEwen: when you...

[1:14:50] Cameron McEwen: talk about the economy having laws and being run by...

[1:15:00] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:15:01] Cameron McEwen: by banks.

[1:15:02] Cameron McEwen: And that's a kind of model for how McLuhan Posthuman society.

[1:15:09] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:15:10] Cameron McEwen: But it's not the case that we knew the laws or the programs that were running everything.

[1:15:20] Cameron McEwen: What McLuhan is saying is that there are these laws and these programs.

[1:15:26] Cameron McEwen: And the only way to go about...

[1:15:29] Cameron McEwen: dealing with all of these changes is to understand these laws and programs,

[1:15:35] Cameron McEwen: but he didn't know what they were.

[1:15:37] Cameron McEwen: What he was advocating was the research and the probing and the investigation that would reveal those laws.

[1:15:47] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[1:15:47] Bob Dobbs: he eventually tried to make some laws,

[1:15:49] Bob Dobbs: but he was willing to them not to be understood or people didn't realize the importance of them.

[1:15:58] Bob Dobbs: you know the tetrad and that so uh maybe he felt he had to come up with something uh so he came up with it and it's not bad uh well i agree with that yeah and um

[1:16:14] Bob Dobbs: he's uh nobody's really tackling it coming with coming up with anything better maybe is the problem is how do you implement them other than just personal awareness of that

[1:16:28] Cameron McEwen: I think it's more difficult than that.

[1:16:32] Cameron McEwen: The tetrad is not the answer to life's problems.

[1:16:36] Cameron McEwen: The tetrad is an example of how complicated every single idea is.

[1:16:46] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:16:46] Bob Dobbs: but that's what you're asking for,

[1:16:47] Bob Dobbs: understanding the laws.

[1:16:50] Cameron McEwen: That's right.

[1:16:50] Cameron McEwen: But if we think about chemistry,

[1:16:58] Cameron McEwen: and organic chemistry and zoology and genetics,

[1:17:02] Cameron McEwen: all that sort of stuff.

[1:17:04] Cameron McEwen: The science has very many different disciplines to it.

[1:17:13] Cameron McEwen: And it would be a huge mistake if we were to say,

[1:17:17] Cameron McEwen: okay,

[1:17:19] Cameron McEwen: we understand something about chemistry,

[1:17:22] Cameron McEwen: so we're going to apply those chemical laws literally to...

[1:17:26] Cameron McEwen: let's say medicine.

[1:17:28] Cameron McEwen: That wouldn't work because medicine has a completely different focus from straight chemistry.

[1:17:38] Cameron McEwen: A doctor needs to know some chemistry,

[1:17:41] Cameron McEwen: but a doctor needs to know a great deal of other stuff beyond chemistry.

[1:17:48] Cameron McEwen: And similarly here,

[1:17:50] Cameron McEwen: it's to say,

[1:17:51] Cameron McEwen: okay,

[1:17:51] Cameron McEwen: there's the tetrad and that shows the complications there are to any.

[1:17:57] Cameron McEwen: single idea,

[1:17:59] Cameron McEwen: that may be true,

[1:18:00] Cameron McEwen: but you can't just take the tetrad and say this is the answer to world history.

[1:18:05] Cameron McEwen: That's ridiculous.

[1:18:07] Bob Dobbs: So you bring in other meme systems,

[1:18:11] Bob Dobbs: which is what I do on my chart.

[1:18:12] Bob Dobbs: I rotate through.

[1:18:13] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:18:14] Cameron McEwen: I agree.

[1:18:14] Cameron McEwen: I agree completely with that.

[1:18:16] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:18:17] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:18:17] Cameron McEwen: The chart is an example of just how complicated things are.

[1:18:24] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:18:27] Cameron McEwen: once you go from individual psychology to collective psychology to sociology,

[1:18:38] Cameron McEwen: etc.,

[1:18:38] Cameron McEwen: etc.

[1:18:39] Cameron McEwen: It's very,

[1:18:41] Cameron McEwen: very complicated,

[1:18:41] Cameron McEwen: but we can see from the physical sciences that it's entirely possible.

[1:18:48] Cameron McEwen: So McLuhan around,

[1:18:48] Cameron McEwen: let's say,

[1:18:48] Cameron McEwen: 1958.

[1:18:54] Cameron McEwen: When McLuhan first uses the phrase,

[1:18:57] Cameron McEwen: the medium is the message,

[1:18:58] Cameron McEwen: what he's come to see is that there is a kind of basic focus that we can use in understanding human events.

[1:19:13] Cameron McEwen: But almost immediately,

[1:19:14] Cameron McEwen: let us say 5960,

[1:19:17] Cameron McEwen: he also understands that human beings are inevitably involved

[1:19:24] Cameron McEwen: in complex associations that are far bigger and in a sense more determinative than their individual psychologies.

[1:19:37] Cameron McEwen: So he realized right in that period,

[1:19:41] Cameron McEwen: 50 to 60,

[1:19:43] Cameron McEwen: is where that's the great kind of focal point.

[1:19:47] Bob Dobbs: You mean 1950 or 59 to 60?

[1:19:51] Cameron McEwen: No,

[1:19:51] Cameron McEwen: 58.

[1:19:52] Cameron McEwen: to 60,

[1:19:53] Cameron McEwen: those two years.

[1:19:56] Cameron McEwen: That's when

[1:19:57] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan most important ideas,

[1:20:00] Cameron McEwen: most important in his valuation,

[1:20:03] Cameron McEwen: his most important ideas occurred to him in that two-year period.

[1:20:07] Cameron McEwen: And the crazy thing is that his brain broke as a result of those discoveries.

[1:20:16] Cameron McEwen: That's right.

[1:20:18] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:20:19] Bob Dobbs: his brain broke.

[1:20:24] Bob Dobbs: So he did become lost physically in those instances.

[1:20:28] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:20:29] Cameron McEwen: he had blackouts.

[1:20:30] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:20:31] Cameron McEwen: Right?

[1:20:31] Cameron McEwen: He had literal blackouts,

[1:20:33] Cameron McEwen: which was a symbolic representation of...

[1:20:38] Cameron McEwen: Sort of the implication of his ideas.

[1:20:42] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:20:42] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:20:42] Bob Dobbs: Kroker's book is talking about the ablated consciousness,

[1:20:46] Bob Dobbs: the blackout that's happening to everybody.

[1:20:48] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:20:49] Cameron McEwen: there you go.

[1:20:50] Bob Dobbs: And I told you my pattern,

[1:20:51] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:20:51] Bob Dobbs: since the late 40s,

[1:20:53] Bob Dobbs: any time a new technology came in,

[1:20:54] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan got sick.

[1:20:56] Bob Dobbs: He got affected by it.

[1:20:58] Bob Dobbs: It's interesting if he was being affected by it because he was on the bleeding edge and was picking up on what's going on like we imagined.

[1:21:07] Bob Dobbs: artists are.

[1:21:08] Bob Dobbs: They're sensitive to the trauma of the change.

[1:21:12] Cameron McEwen: That's right,

[1:21:12] Cameron McEwen: like a radar station,

[1:21:14] Cameron McEwen: like a dew line.

[1:21:15] Bob Dobbs: And so in that way,

[1:21:17] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan was the most...

[1:21:18] Cameron McEwen: And by the way,

[1:21:18] Cameron McEwen: that's when he started Dew Line,

[1:21:20] Cameron McEwen: wasn't it?

[1:21:21] Cameron McEwen: No,

[1:21:22] Cameron McEwen: Dew Line 68.

[1:21:23] Cameron McEwen: 69,

[1:21:23] Cameron McEwen: yeah.

[1:21:24] Cameron McEwen: No,

[1:21:24] Bob Dobbs: Summer of 68,

[1:21:25] Bob Dobbs: July 68,

[1:21:26] Bob Dobbs: first issue.

[1:21:27] Cameron McEwen: But 10 years later than when I talked about it.

[1:21:30] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:21:30] Bob Dobbs: But the...

[1:21:32] Bob Dobbs: If you're looking at someone who's a,

[1:21:35] Bob Dobbs: quote,

[1:21:36] Bob Dobbs: artist,

[1:21:36] Bob Dobbs: or scientists who's accomplishing things,

[1:21:39] Bob Dobbs: but breaking down,

[1:21:41] Bob Dobbs: they're probably different artists or like that,

[1:21:44] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:21:44] Bob Dobbs: great artists.

[1:21:46] Bob Dobbs: But that's a sign McLuhan makes a short list as one of the greater artists of his time because he was getting affected.

[1:21:51] Bob Dobbs: He was feeling it.

[1:21:54] Bob Dobbs: You know?

[1:21:55] Bob Dobbs: Psychosomatic or collectosomatic is picking up on the collective.

[1:22:02] Cameron McEwen: That's a crutch that people...

[1:22:06] Cameron McEwen: I like to use,

[1:22:08] Cameron McEwen: right?

[1:22:08] Cameron McEwen: I have great insight because I'm being affected so deeply by it.

[1:22:14] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[1:22:16] Bob Dobbs: you could say McLuhan was genuinely being affected because he didn't act out cliche neuroses that are familiar for people to pretend they're sick.

[1:22:23] Bob Dobbs: He was doing ridiculous things like a Dr.

[1:22:25] Bob Dobbs: Strangelove salute while blacking out,

[1:22:28] Bob Dobbs: right?

[1:22:29] Bob Dobbs: So he was really being affected.

[1:22:31] Bob Dobbs: You don't do that when you try to get attention for your sensitivities.

[1:22:36] Bob Dobbs: You don't push the envelope.

[1:22:37] Bob Dobbs: You try to make it able that people can understand you and believe you.

[1:22:42] Bob Dobbs: He was not believable what he was going through.

[1:22:46] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:22:46] Cameron McEwen: that's right.

[1:22:46] Cameron McEwen: So that goes back to what we were saying a minute ago about being a radar station.

[1:22:54] Cameron McEwen: The antenna,

[1:22:55] Bob Dobbs: pounds quote,

[1:22:56] Bob Dobbs: antenna.

[1:22:58] Cameron McEwen: That's right,

[1:22:58] Cameron McEwen: being the antenna of the race.

[1:23:01] Cameron McEwen: People that are sensitive in that sense.

[1:23:07] Cameron McEwen: are indeed great weather vanes for the race,

[1:23:15] Cameron McEwen: and they act out what it is that they need to understand.

[1:23:23] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:23:24] Bob Dobbs: that's the great thing about Theall writing on McLuhan.

[1:23:26] Bob Dobbs: He knows that about McLuhan and says it,

[1:23:28] Bob Dobbs: because McLuhan was responding to the changes like a weather vane antenna,

[1:23:33] Bob Dobbs: And whereas most people who...

[1:23:36] Bob Dobbs: His colleagues in the Acadia University and that,

[1:23:38] Bob Dobbs: whoever read him,

[1:23:39] Bob Dobbs: they said,

[1:23:39] Bob Dobbs: oh,

[1:23:39] Bob Dobbs: he was a,

[1:23:40] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:23:40] Bob Dobbs: Johnny come lately,

[1:23:41] Bob Dobbs: he showed up,

[1:23:42] Bob Dobbs: he disappeared.

[1:23:43] Bob Dobbs: Not a great weather vane,

[1:23:44] Bob Dobbs: you know what I mean?

[1:23:45] Bob Dobbs: But Don Theall saw that.

[1:23:47] Bob Dobbs: He knew the significance of McLuhan.

[1:23:50] Cameron McEwen: But he,

[1:23:51] Cameron McEwen: Don,

[1:23:52] Cameron McEwen: I don't,

[1:23:53] Cameron McEwen: I didn't know Don like you did.

[1:23:55] Cameron McEwen: I met him personally,

[1:23:58] Cameron McEwen: but

[1:24:01] Cameron McEwen: I thought that

[1:24:03] Cameron McEwen: Don thought that this.

[1:24:05] Cameron McEwen: side of McLuhan was suspicious.

[1:24:08] Bob Dobbs: No.

[1:24:09] Cameron McEwen: Isn't that the side of McLuhan that he calls schizophrenic?

[1:24:12] Bob Dobbs: No,

[1:24:12] Bob Dobbs: he calls it schizoid and he pointed out to me,

[1:24:14] Bob Dobbs: no problem saying schizoid.

[1:24:16] Bob Dobbs: It's a slang term.

[1:24:17] Bob Dobbs: It's not even the disease of schizophrenia.

[1:24:21] Bob Dobbs: He's puzzling the people.

[1:24:22] Bob Dobbs: He seems to contradict himself,

[1:24:24] Bob Dobbs: which I then developed into quadrophrenia.

[1:24:27] Bob Dobbs: I go further than Don.

[1:24:28] Bob Dobbs: I call it,

[1:24:28] Bob Dobbs: accuse McLuhan of quadrophrenia.

[1:24:30] Bob Dobbs: No,

[1:24:31] Bob Dobbs: it's schizoid.

[1:24:32] Bob Dobbs: But no,

[1:24:33] Bob Dobbs: Don really understood McLuhan And he...

[1:24:35] Bob Dobbs: He was not doing that.

[1:24:38] Bob Dobbs: All right.

[1:24:38] Bob Dobbs: Do you think so?

[1:24:40] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[1:24:42] Cameron McEwen: I didn't dislike

[1:24:44] Cameron McEwen: Don at all,

[1:24:45] Cameron McEwen: but

[1:24:48] Cameron McEwen: I've known an awful lot of very,

[1:24:51] Cameron McEwen: very smart people in my time.

[1:24:53] Bob Dobbs: What kind of people did you say?

[1:24:55] Bob Dobbs: What kind of people?

[1:24:57] Cameron McEwen: Smart.

[1:24:58] Bob Dobbs: Smart people,

[1:24:58] Bob Dobbs: okay.

[1:24:59] Cameron McEwen: Brilliant.

[1:25:00] Cameron McEwen: Brilliant.

[1:25:00] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:25:02] Cameron McEwen: People like Kuhn at Princeton or Rorty at Princeton or Gadamer lately.

[1:25:09] Cameron McEwen: Or,

[1:25:12] Cameron McEwen: you know,

[1:25:12] Cameron McEwen: John O'Neill,

[1:25:13] Cameron McEwen: I believe,

[1:25:13] Cameron McEwen: was a brilliant guy.

[1:25:16] Bob Dobbs: At Acadia University?

[1:25:17] Cameron McEwen: At Acadia University,

[1:25:18] Cameron McEwen: yeah.

[1:25:20] Cameron McEwen: So

[1:25:22] Cameron McEwen: Don did not have a brilliant mind in that sense.

[1:25:28] Cameron McEwen: He wasn't somebody that...

[1:25:32] Bob Dobbs: would in conversation would come up with surprising ideas or something well he was but he was thoughtful uh you see he was the only guy could have really in-depth understanding conversations about McLuhan and get really subtle about what we're saying like we do he

[1:25:50] Bob Dobbs: uh there was nobody else around that you could do that uh and he would not fly his ego at you he'd listen to you and then he'd maybe suggest well what about this part

[1:26:01] Bob Dobbs: I mean,

[1:26:01] Bob Dobbs: it was a great conversation.

[1:26:02] Bob Dobbs: And his wife told me that he loved my conversation with him.

[1:26:05] Bob Dobbs: He was always excited about it.

[1:26:07] Bob Dobbs: And so that,

[1:26:09] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:26:09] Bob Dobbs: you can't deny that.

[1:26:11] Bob Dobbs: He's brilliant and smart as far as my experience of him,

[1:26:14] Bob Dobbs: you know?

[1:26:15] Cameron McEwen: Right.

[1:26:15] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[1:26:15] Cameron McEwen: yeah.

[1:26:15] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[1:26:16] Cameron McEwen: I'm not trying to say that I know the truth about the man.

[1:26:21] Cameron McEwen: All I know about him is the conversation I had with him and his wife over a long lunch one day in New York.

[1:26:30] Cameron McEwen: So it's,

[1:26:33] Cameron McEwen: and I know people that worked with

[1:26:37] Cameron McEwen: Don at

[1:26:39] Cameron McEwen: Trent.

[1:26:41] Cameron McEwen: Yeah. So that's all,

[1:26:45] Cameron McEwen: you know,

[1:26:45] Cameron McEwen: my experience of the man.

[1:26:47] Bob Dobbs: Did you know that Don regretted the directions life led him to,

[1:26:52] Bob Dobbs: the presidency?

[1:26:54] Bob Dobbs: He said,

[1:26:55] Bob Dobbs: I went for power,

[1:26:56] Bob Dobbs: and that was a mistake.

[1:26:59] Bob Dobbs: Not many people admit that.

[1:27:00] Bob Dobbs: I think that's pretty commendable.

[1:27:02] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:27:04] Cameron McEwen: anybody that has any intelligence at all knows that life is sort of wandering from one mistake to another.

[1:27:13] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:27:14] Bob Dobbs: so he told me a lot of personal things that happened to him up there in Trent.

[1:27:19] Bob Dobbs: It wasn't great.

[1:27:21] Bob Dobbs: That's when he resigned in 87 or so.

[1:27:28] Bob Dobbs: So that's it.

[1:27:28] Bob Dobbs: And he got Stewart Brand's book,

[1:27:30] Bob Dobbs: The Media Lab,

[1:27:31] Bob Dobbs: and he read that and he said,

[1:27:32] Bob Dobbs: oh,

[1:27:33] Bob Dobbs: they're using McLuhan down there.

[1:27:35] Bob Dobbs: They talk about Joyce and McLuhan.

[1:27:37] Bob Dobbs: And that gave him this big idea about Finnegans Wake as the key to postmodern culture that he started to write about and became quite well known in the early

[1:27:45] Bob Dobbs: 90s.

[1:27:46] Bob Dobbs: Before the Internet,

[1:27:47] Bob Dobbs: he became,

[1:27:49] Bob Dobbs: he had a flash like McLuhan did,

[1:27:51] Bob Dobbs: say,

[1:27:51] Bob Dobbs: in the mid 50s before his real fame.

[1:27:55] Bob Dobbs: But Don did that.

[1:27:57] Cameron McEwen: But that's kind of a crazy flash to have,

[1:28:00] Cameron McEwen: right?

[1:28:00] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[1:28:01] Cameron McEwen: here at the very time that

[1:28:05] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was,

[1:28:06] Cameron McEwen: or that Theall was working with McLuhan,

[1:28:09] Cameron McEwen: was the time when

[1:28:11] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was most involved with Finnegans Wake as sort of the key to,

[1:28:21] Cameron McEwen: I don't know,

[1:28:22] Cameron McEwen: addressing the world,

[1:28:24] Cameron McEwen: if you could say.

[1:28:26] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:28:27] Cameron McEwen: And so here's

[1:28:29] Cameron McEwen: Theall, how many years later,

[1:28:33] Cameron McEwen: that was,

[1:28:34] Cameron McEwen: let's say that was

[1:28:35] Cameron McEwen: 53, so he's

[1:28:39] Cameron McEwen: 35 years later,

[1:28:41] Cameron McEwen: Theall is saying,

[1:28:42] Cameron McEwen: oh,

[1:28:42] Cameron McEwen: I got this great idea about

[1:28:44] Cameron McEwen: Finnegans Wake and McLuhan and society.

[1:28:48] Bob Dobbs: No,

[1:28:48] Bob Dobbs: like he was always writing essays on Finnegans Wake and McLuhan,

[1:28:52] Bob Dobbs: all the way through,

[1:28:54] Bob Dobbs: but nobody cared.

[1:28:55] Bob Dobbs: The Joyce didn't understand his emphasis on McLuhan.

[1:28:59] Bob Dobbs: What he did,

[1:29:01] Bob Dobbs: when he saw Stewart Brand,

[1:29:02] Bob Dobbs: he said,

[1:29:02] Bob Dobbs: Ah,

[1:29:03] Bob Dobbs: I can put on the world.

[1:29:04] Bob Dobbs: I've got a way to put them all on.

[1:29:05] Bob Dobbs: I'll get attention,

[1:29:07] Bob Dobbs: and I'll get to do what I want to do,

[1:29:08] Bob Dobbs: rather than being a bureaucrat in Acadia University office.

[1:29:12] Bob Dobbs: And that's what he did.

[1:29:12] Bob Dobbs: He found a way to put them on,

[1:29:15] Bob Dobbs: which McLuhan did,

[1:29:16] Bob Dobbs: same way,

[1:29:17] Bob Dobbs: many different times,

[1:29:18] Bob Dobbs: probably.

[1:29:19] Bob Dobbs: So,

[1:29:19] Bob Dobbs: no,

[1:29:20] Bob Dobbs: he'd been...

[1:29:22] Bob Dobbs: building up his case for decades and all the essays.

[1:29:25] Bob Dobbs: I have them all that he was writing.

[1:29:27] Bob Dobbs: And they were building on the insights he got with Marshall in the early 50s doing Finnegans Wake together.

[1:29:33] Bob Dobbs: I mean,

[1:29:34] Bob Dobbs: they had a Finnegans Wake reading group.

[1:29:36] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:29:36] Cameron McEwen: yeah,

[1:29:36] Cameron McEwen: that's true.

[1:29:37] Cameron McEwen: That's true.

[1:29:38] Cameron McEwen: Bob,

[1:29:38] Cameron McEwen: let me,

[1:29:39] Cameron McEwen: just for a second here,

[1:29:40] Cameron McEwen: I'm going to be setting out some food for the dog.

[1:29:44] Bob Dobbs: Okay.

[1:29:45] Cameron McEwen: So there'll be a strange noise,

[1:29:47] Cameron McEwen: but

[1:29:48] Cameron McEwen: I'll be right back with you in a sec.

[1:29:50] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[1:29:50] Bob Dobbs: you're doing that right now?

[1:29:54] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:29:55] Bob Dobbs: right this second as we speak.

[1:29:55] Cameron McEwen: Okay,

[1:29:56] Cameron McEwen: go ahead.

[1:29:57] Cameron McEwen: He's up and he's hungry,

[1:29:58] Cameron McEwen: and

[1:29:59] Cameron McEwen: I have to give him first place here.

[1:30:02] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:30:02] Bob Dobbs: he must feed the beast.

[1:30:03] Cameron McEwen: That's it.

[1:30:14] Cameron McEwen: All right,

[1:30:14] Cameron McEwen: that's done.

[1:30:16] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:30:16] Bob Dobbs: no,

[1:30:17] Bob Dobbs: I noticed

[1:30:19] Bob Dobbs: Theall's writing,

[1:30:21] Bob Dobbs: when he did his book,

[1:30:22] Bob Dobbs: the review of what is it,

[1:30:24] Bob Dobbs: The Virtual Marshall McLuhan.

[1:30:26] Bob Dobbs: People didn't get it.

[1:30:28] Bob Dobbs: Reviewers said,

[1:30:28] Bob Dobbs: well,

[1:30:29] Bob Dobbs: this guy is reacting to McLuhan personally.

[1:30:31] Bob Dobbs: He's got a vendetta and all this.

[1:30:33] Bob Dobbs: Maybe

[1:30:34] Bob Dobbs: Don didn't express it well,

[1:30:35] Bob Dobbs: but having discussed that dilemma,

[1:30:38] Bob Dobbs: his issues with McLuhan for many times,

[1:30:41] Bob Dobbs: I knew what he was talking about.

[1:30:42] Bob Dobbs: So

[1:30:43] Bob Dobbs: I didn't think he didn't have a personal vendetta or anything or wound.

[1:30:48] Bob Dobbs: He said,

[1:30:49] Bob Dobbs: no,

[1:30:49] Bob Dobbs: we've got to deal with this.

[1:30:50] Bob Dobbs: And he said basically McLuhan simplified Finnegans Wake too much.

[1:30:55] Bob Dobbs: And so Don said,

[1:30:56] Bob Dobbs: I've got to get back.

[1:30:57] Bob Dobbs: We're going to redo Finnegans Wake and apply it to the digital culture to get out of the cul-de-sac that McLuhan had gotten people with if they even got into Finnegans Wake.

[1:31:07] Bob Dobbs: But because he was dealing with a highbrow approach to McLuhan,

[1:31:10] Bob Dobbs: Finnegans Wake was the key.

[1:31:11] Bob Dobbs: So he had to talk about it.

[1:31:13] Bob Dobbs: So he said,

[1:31:14] Bob Dobbs: OK,

[1:31:14] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan has some insights here,

[1:31:16] Bob Dobbs: but we've got to get back to Finnegans Wake and go through it again and look at the media levels of it.

[1:31:22] Bob Dobbs: without getting trapped by McLuhan reductionism.

[1:31:26] Bob Dobbs: Then one could say,

[1:31:27] Bob Dobbs: well,

[1:31:27] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan was putting on the public and kept it simple.

[1:31:30] Bob Dobbs: So

[1:31:31] Bob Dobbs: I'm sure Don had that issue about,

[1:31:33] Bob Dobbs: well,

[1:31:34] Bob Dobbs: how well am I communicating,

[1:31:36] Bob Dobbs: he would say.

[1:31:37] Bob Dobbs: I'm not getting anywheres.

[1:31:39] Bob Dobbs: If McLuhan screwed up here and there,

[1:31:41] Bob Dobbs: I'm screwing up,

[1:31:43] Bob Dobbs: which he never said that blatantly,

[1:31:46] Bob Dobbs: but he was frustrated by the situation of what

[1:31:50] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan had created.

[1:31:51] Bob Dobbs: and he was trying to build on it.

[1:31:54] Bob Dobbs: So anyways,

[1:31:55] Bob Dobbs: I give Theall a lot of credit for what he did.

[1:32:00] Bob Dobbs: And he was a quiet guy,

[1:32:02] Bob Dobbs: but he knew everybody in Canadian culture,

[1:32:05] Bob Dobbs: and he mingled more than McLuhan did in the 50s and 60s.

[1:32:09] Bob Dobbs: He'd be the representative of McLuhan out there in the art world,

[1:32:13] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:32:13] Bob Dobbs: in Arts Canada magazine and all that,

[1:32:15] Bob Dobbs: where people wanted to talk to McLuhan,

[1:32:16] Bob Dobbs: but he wouldn't be around,

[1:32:18] Bob Dobbs: so they'd talk to Don.

[1:32:20] Bob Dobbs: Don knew everybody in all the worlds.

[1:32:23] Bob Dobbs: And he was a great friend of the National Film Board founder from Britain who did the propaganda in

[1:32:31] Bob Dobbs: World War II,

[1:32:33] Bob Dobbs: John somebody.

[1:32:34] Bob Dobbs: Who's the famous

[1:32:36] Bob Dobbs: NFB guy?

[1:32:38] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[1:32:38] Bob Dobbs: famous documentary man in England that took over the NFB.

[1:32:42] Bob Dobbs: Came to Montreal while Don was there and spent a lot of time hanging out with him.

[1:32:48] Bob Dobbs: And got ill because of it.

[1:32:50] Bob Dobbs: you had to drink a lot hanging out with this guy.

[1:32:53] Bob Dobbs: So eventually it screwed up some of Don's innards,

[1:32:56] Bob Dobbs: and he had to go to the hospital in 70 or so,

[1:32:59] Bob Dobbs: and that's when he wrote The Medium Is the Rear View Mirror while he was in the hospital.

[1:33:03] Bob Dobbs: Otherwise,

[1:33:03] Bob Dobbs: he never would have done it.

[1:33:05] Bob Dobbs: He wasn't interested in writing a book on McLuhan.

[1:33:08] Bob Dobbs: But a friend suggested it,

[1:33:10] Bob Dobbs: and he thought,

[1:33:10] Bob Dobbs: well,

[1:33:10] Bob Dobbs: I'm not doing anything laid up here,

[1:33:13] Bob Dobbs: so let's see what we can do.

[1:33:15] Bob Dobbs: But who's the famous NFB guy?

[1:33:19] Bob Dobbs: You don't know who I mean,

[1:33:20] Bob Dobbs: eh?

[1:33:20] Bob Dobbs: Let's see.

[1:33:21] Bob Dobbs: No.

[1:33:22] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[1:33:22] Cameron McEwen: there was,

[1:33:23] Cameron McEwen: wasn't Norman McLaren?

[1:33:25] Bob Dobbs: No,

[1:33:25] Bob Dobbs: he's a Mayr of animation.

[1:33:27] Bob Dobbs: This is a thinker.

[1:33:30] Bob Dobbs: John,

[1:33:30] Bob Dobbs: let's see,

[1:33:31] Bob Dobbs: you put in John,

[1:33:33] Bob Dobbs: NFB director.

[1:33:36] Bob Dobbs: I'll just say director.

[1:33:40] Bob Dobbs: See what that comes up with.

[1:33:43] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[1:33:43] Cameron McEwen: you'll get it.

[1:33:45] Bob Dobbs: No,

[1:33:45] Bob Dobbs: not yet.

[1:33:45] Bob Dobbs: Just a second.

[1:33:49] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[1:33:49] Bob Dobbs: here's a list.

[1:33:55] Bob Dobbs: Dennis Erick and going to

[1:34:01] Bob Dobbs: Norman McLaren.

[1:34:11] Bob Dobbs: There's a lot of them,

[1:34:13] Bob Dobbs: but not the guy I'm looking for.

[1:34:16] Bob Dobbs: Just keep going here.

[1:34:31] Bob Dobbs: Nope,

[1:34:31] Bob Dobbs: doesn't come up.

[1:34:33] Bob Dobbs: So

[1:34:34] Bob Dobbs: I'm going to put in legendary NFB people,

[1:34:43] Bob Dobbs: early

[1:34:44] Bob Dobbs: NFB creators.

[1:34:53] Bob Dobbs: John Grierson,

[1:34:54] Bob Dobbs: that's the guy.

[1:34:57] Bob Dobbs: You know that name?

[1:34:58] Bob Dobbs: Yes.

[1:34:59] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:34:59] Bob Dobbs: 1898 to 1972.

[1:35:04] Bob Dobbs: So he and Don get together.

[1:35:07] Bob Dobbs: They get sick.

[1:35:08] Bob Dobbs: Don survives.

[1:35:09] Bob Dobbs: John dies because of their camaraderie.

[1:35:14] Bob Dobbs: Grierson was a pioneering Scottish documentary Mayr,

[1:35:17] Bob Dobbs: often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film.

[1:35:21] Bob Dobbs: In 1926,

[1:35:22] Bob Dobbs: Grierson coined the term documentary.

[1:35:24] Bob Dobbs: In a review of

[1:35:26] Bob Dobbs: Robert's...

[1:35:26] Bob Dobbs: Flaherty's Moana.

[1:35:29] Bob Dobbs: Is that the guy who did the

[1:35:31] Bob Dobbs: Eskimo thing?

[1:35:33] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:35:34] Bob Dobbs: Nanook.

[1:35:34] Bob Dobbs: He's the guy who did Nanook.

[1:35:35] Bob Dobbs: You remember that?

[1:35:37] Bob Dobbs: Ted Carpenter talks about

[1:35:38] Bob Dobbs: Flaherty.

[1:35:40] Bob Dobbs: So, let's see.

[1:35:47] Bob Dobbs: World War I.

[1:35:52] Bob Dobbs: He was sent to the wireless telegraphy station at Alp...

[1:35:56] Bob Dobbs: by Cromartie in 1916 as an ordinary telegraphist but was promoted to telegraphist in June and he became a telegraphist on the Minesweeper so he's working with telegraphy the next day he joined he does this what

[1:36:16] Cameron McEwen: was the first place that you said he was sent to?

[1:36:19] Bob Dobbs: Alton B.

[1:36:20] Bob Dobbs: Cromartie was that Ireland or something?

[1:36:23] Bob Dobbs: let's see,

[1:36:25] Bob Dobbs: Scotland

[1:36:27] Bob Dobbs: Cromartie is in,

[1:36:28] Bob Dobbs: is Scottish Gaelic,

[1:36:29] Bob Dobbs: yeah,

[1:36:30] Bob Dobbs: it's in,

[1:36:31] Bob Dobbs: Cromartie

[1:36:32] Bob Dobbs: County or something.

[1:36:33] Bob Dobbs: No,

[1:36:34] Bob Dobbs: I'm saying Krishnamurti in the Highland area of Scotland.

[1:36:37] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:36:38] Cameron McEwen: And so that was probably had to do with,

[1:36:41] Bob Dobbs: um,

[1:36:42] Cameron McEwen: the telegraph cable that went over to the Maritimes.

[1:36:45] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:36:46] Bob Dobbs: And so he's,

[1:36:48] Bob Dobbs: at the end of the war,

[1:36:49] Bob Dobbs: he walked away from his time in the Navy with a British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

[1:36:54] Bob Dobbs: And he goes...

[1:36:55] Bob Dobbs: He joins the Fabian Society of Socialists in 1919,

[1:37:03] Bob Dobbs: but dissolved in 21.

[1:37:11] Bob Dobbs: And he did the Critics Club.

[1:37:13] Bob Dobbs: He had poetry published.

[1:37:16] Bob Dobbs: He received a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1923 to study in the United States at the University of Chicago.

[1:37:23] Bob Dobbs: That's where,

[1:37:23] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:37:23] Bob Dobbs: he'd run across.

[1:37:25] Bob Dobbs: Robert,

[1:37:26] Bob Dobbs: the guy that McLuhan and Innis talk about,

[1:37:28] Bob Dobbs: Robert somebody at the University of...

[1:37:30] Bob Dobbs: Park.

[1:37:31] Bob Dobbs: Who?

[1:37:32] Bob Dobbs: Park,

[1:37:32] Bob Dobbs: right,

[1:37:33] Bob Dobbs: Park,

[1:37:33] Bob Dobbs: yeah.

[1:37:34] Bob Dobbs: And later,

[1:37:35] Bob Dobbs: Columbia,

[1:37:36] Bob Dobbs: his research focus was the psychology of propaganda,

[1:37:39] Bob Dobbs: the impact of the press,

[1:37:40] Bob Dobbs: film,

[1:37:41] Bob Dobbs: and other mass media on forming public opinion.

[1:37:43] Bob Dobbs: He was particularly interested in the popular appeal and influence of the yellow tabloid press and the influence and role of these journals on the education of new American citizens from abroad.

[1:37:54] Bob Dobbs: Let's see.

[1:37:56] Bob Dobbs: So he goes on celebrating documentary,

[1:37:58] Bob Dobbs: I guess coins the term.

[1:38:02] Bob Dobbs: He read and agreed with the journalist and political philosopher Walter Lippmann book,

[1:38:06] Bob Dobbs: Public Opinion.

[1:38:07] Bob Dobbs: So he's getting to study media,

[1:38:12] Bob Dobbs: an early guy,

[1:38:13] Bob Dobbs: at least in his world.

[1:38:15] Bob Dobbs: Let's see.

[1:38:17] Bob Dobbs: Grierson's emerging view of film was as a form of social and political communication,

[1:38:22] Bob Dobbs: a mechanism for social reform,

[1:38:24] Bob Dobbs: education,

[1:38:24] Bob Dobbs: perhaps spiritual uplift.

[1:38:26] Bob Dobbs: His view of Hollywood moviemaking was considerably less sanguine.

[1:38:30] Bob Dobbs: He said,

[1:38:31] Bob Dobbs: in an age when the faith,

[1:38:33] Bob Dobbs: the faith,

[1:38:34] Bob Dobbs: F-A-I-T-H-S,

[1:38:36] Bob Dobbs: the loyalties and the purposes have been more than usually undermined,

[1:38:41] Bob Dobbs: mental fatigue,

[1:38:42] Bob Dobbs: or is it spiritual fatigue,

[1:38:44] Bob Dobbs: represents a large factor in everyday experience.

[1:38:46] Bob Dobbs: Our cinema magnate does no more than exploit the occasion.

[1:38:50] Bob Dobbs: He also,

[1:38:51] Bob Dobbs: more or less frankly,

[1:38:52] Bob Dobbs: is a dope peddler.

[1:38:53] Bob Dobbs: I guess the guy who makes movies.

[1:38:56] Bob Dobbs: Our cinema magnate does no more than exploit the occasion.

[1:38:59] Bob Dobbs: He also more or less frankly is a dope peddler.

[1:39:01] Bob Dobbs: That is interesting.

[1:39:02] Bob Dobbs: This is early media analysis.

[1:39:05] Bob Dobbs: And Don got to hang out with this guy.

[1:39:08] Cameron McEwen: Right.

[1:39:09] Cameron McEwen: But this is for the

[1:39:14] Cameron McEwen: Canadian analysis of American culture.

[1:39:18] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:39:19] Cameron McEwen: This is a fairly typical up to some time,

[1:39:24] Cameron McEwen: I guess,

[1:39:24] Cameron McEwen: in the 19...

[1:39:26] Cameron McEwen: 70s or so.

[1:39:27] Cameron McEwen: But everybody that was thinking in Canada was warning about American films,

[1:39:35] Cameron McEwen: American television,

[1:39:37] Cameron McEwen: American advertising,

[1:39:39] Cameron McEwen: all this sort of stuff as being a social dynamite.

[1:39:45] Bob Dobbs: Social poison.

[1:39:47] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:39:48] Cameron McEwen: social dynamite,

[1:39:48] Cameron McEwen: I was going to say.

[1:39:52] Cameron McEwen: And what's happened to Canada is that

[1:39:55] Cameron McEwen: It completely ignored all of that.

[1:39:58] Cameron McEwen: and just kept consuming more and more American films,

[1:40:02] Cameron McEwen: more and more

[1:40:04] Cameron McEwen: American everything.

[1:40:05] Bob Dobbs: Because it was nature,

[1:40:07] Bob Dobbs: new nature.

[1:40:08] Bob Dobbs: You couldn't stop consuming it.

[1:40:10] Bob Dobbs: It was vital,

[1:40:12] Bob Dobbs: regardless of the content.

[1:40:16] Bob Dobbs: Media,

[1:40:17] Bob Dobbs: new nature.

[1:40:19] Cameron McEwen: That's right.

[1:40:19] Cameron McEwen: But there was...

[1:40:26] Cameron McEwen: For McLuhan,

[1:40:27] Cameron McEwen: but not only McLuhan,

[1:40:28] Cameron McEwen: for

[1:40:29] Cameron McEwen: Innis and Grant and for many people like this,

[1:40:34] Cameron McEwen: Grierson,

[1:40:38] Cameron McEwen: being in anti-environment with no way out also posed a demand on understanding.

[1:40:50] Cameron McEwen: And so it's not the case that...

[1:40:55] Cameron McEwen: We're in service environment,

[1:40:56] Cameron McEwen: and that's the last word.

[1:40:59] Cameron McEwen: We're in service environment,

[1:41:00] Cameron McEwen: and we need to think about where we Marchand what the alternatives are.

[1:41:06] Cameron McEwen: And what's happened in Canada,

[1:41:09] Cameron McEwen: as far as I can see,

[1:41:11] Cameron McEwen: is that the entire country has just become fixated on sort of aping America.

[1:41:20] Cameron McEwen: And it's lost.

[1:41:22] Bob Dobbs: The part of America that is in escape velocity,

[1:41:25] Bob Dobbs: you know what I mean?

[1:41:26] Bob Dobbs: It's totally irresponsible.

[1:41:29] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:41:32] Bob Dobbs: Canadians aren't doing too good.

[1:41:35] Cameron McEwen: Terrible.

[1:41:36] Cameron McEwen: That's terrible.

[1:41:37] Cameron McEwen: They've lost their country.

[1:41:39] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:41:39] Bob Dobbs: so they think they're doing okay because America keeps looking stupider and stupider in the White House,

[1:41:45] Bob Dobbs: so that makes them feel superior,

[1:41:47] Bob Dobbs: but they're actually...

[1:41:48] Bob Dobbs: They're down lower.

[1:41:49] Bob Dobbs: There's a lower thing they're comparing themselves to.

[1:41:52] Bob Dobbs: So they're not knowing how low they're going.

[1:41:56] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:41:56] Cameron McEwen: well,

[1:41:56] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[1:41:59] Cameron McEwen: to me,

[1:42:00] Cameron McEwen: Canadians are,

[1:42:03] Cameron McEwen: they retain this sort of self-satisfied,

[1:42:07] Cameron McEwen: we're smarter than everybody kind of attitude.

[1:42:10] Bob Dobbs: We're nicer than anybody.

[1:42:12] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:42:13] Cameron McEwen: exactly.

[1:42:14] Cameron McEwen: But meanwhile,

[1:42:15] Cameron McEwen: we don't know how our money is.

[1:42:18] Cameron McEwen: being spent.

[1:42:19] Cameron McEwen: We don't want to admit that we're making life much more dangerous for our grandchildren.

[1:42:26] Cameron McEwen: We don't like to admit that we're being led by the nose,

[1:42:31] Cameron McEwen: not even by Americans,

[1:42:33] Cameron McEwen: by the initial agencies like the CIA.

[1:42:38] Cameron McEwen: We're being led by the nose all around the world by these folks,

[1:42:43] Cameron McEwen: and we don't even know who they are,

[1:42:46] Cameron McEwen: what they're doing with us.

[1:42:48] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:42:48] Bob Dobbs: in that sense,

[1:42:49] Bob Dobbs: you and I are two,

[1:42:50] Bob Dobbs: we're like

[1:42:52] Bob Dobbs: Dante, we're Canadians in exile,

[1:42:54] Bob Dobbs: disgusted with the country and not acknowledging our leadership.

[1:43:00] Bob Dobbs: I used to say that my people,

[1:43:03] Bob Dobbs: what was it?

[1:43:03] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[1:43:04] Bob Dobbs: so they said De Gaulle was in exile,

[1:43:06] Bob Dobbs: so the government was in exile.

[1:43:07] Bob Dobbs: I said,

[1:43:08] Bob Dobbs: I'm at headquarters,

[1:43:09] Bob Dobbs: my people are in exile.

[1:43:14] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[1:43:14] Bob Dobbs: or flip the

[1:43:15] Bob Dobbs: De Gaulle scenario.

[1:43:16] Bob Dobbs: where he was in England during the war.

[1:43:18] Bob Dobbs: He was the government in exile.

[1:43:20] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[1:43:20] Cameron McEwen: I mean,

[1:43:21] Cameron McEwen: I understand completely what you're saying.

[1:43:24] Cameron McEwen: It's just that in typical fashion,

[1:43:26] Cameron McEwen: you like to take the high road and I like to take the low road.

[1:43:32] Bob Dobbs: That's because I'm a low person and you're a high person.

[1:43:34] Bob Dobbs: So we go our opposite selves.

[1:43:35] Bob Dobbs: We put out our opposites.

[1:43:38] Cameron McEwen: Correct.

[1:43:38] Cameron McEwen: Correct.

[1:43:40] Bob Dobbs: You're a lot more respectful than me.

[1:43:42] Bob Dobbs: You actually worked in digital jobs.

[1:43:46] Bob Dobbs: He knows something about the efficient causality of digital reality.

[1:43:53] Bob Dobbs: I bypass it.

[1:43:53] Cameron McEwen: Very little.

[1:43:55] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:43:55] Bob Dobbs: but you know a lot more than me.

[1:43:56] Bob Dobbs: Anybody does than me.

[1:43:59] Bob Dobbs: My alibi is,

[1:44:00] Bob Dobbs: oh,

[1:44:00] Bob Dobbs: I study the effects.

[1:44:01] Bob Dobbs: I'm into formal causality.

[1:44:05] Bob Dobbs: But

[1:44:08] Bob Dobbs: I find it very interesting reading about Grierson and thinking of Don's hanging out with this guy.

[1:44:12] Bob Dobbs: There's this article.

[1:44:13] Bob Dobbs: I'll try to find it and send it to you.

[1:44:15] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[1:44:15] Bob Dobbs: I think it was a student of Don,

[1:44:18] Bob Dobbs: Paul Tiessen or one of those guys,

[1:44:20] Bob Dobbs: he wrote about

[1:44:21] Bob Dobbs: Wyndham Lewis,

[1:44:22] Bob Dobbs: John Grierson,

[1:44:23] Bob Dobbs: and a couple other guys,

[1:44:24] Bob Dobbs: Canadian thinkers.

[1:44:26] Bob Dobbs: He probably threw in McLuhan,

[1:44:28] Bob Dobbs: but it was sort of just before McLuhan.

[1:44:30] Bob Dobbs: The fountain of Canadian media studies is Grierson and Lewis and some other guys.

[1:44:37] Bob Dobbs: I'll see if I can find it.

[1:44:39] Bob Dobbs: Have you seen the essay?

[1:44:41] Bob Dobbs: Do you know what I mean?

[1:44:43] Cameron McEwen: No,

[1:44:43] Cameron McEwen: I haven't seen the essay,

[1:44:44] Cameron McEwen: but I know of the kind of thinking that was going on.

[1:44:50] Cameron McEwen: And even John O'Neill was part of that thinking as well.

[1:44:57] Cameron McEwen: These were people that thought that McLuhan had abandoned any kind of social concern and didn't understand the negative side of what he was talking about.

[1:45:10] Cameron McEwen: By being a kind of Pollyanna of technology,

[1:45:14] Cameron McEwen: he was just more or less working for the CIA.

[1:45:19] Cameron McEwen: So for them,

[1:45:21] Cameron McEwen: there was little to think about in McLuhan.

[1:45:26] Cameron McEwen: He was somebody who had,

[1:45:31] Cameron McEwen: for one reason or another,

[1:45:33] Cameron McEwen: given up thinking about what was most important to think about.

[1:45:37] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[1:45:37] Bob Dobbs: And Don,

[1:45:39] Bob Dobbs: he knew all these people,

[1:45:40] Bob Dobbs: the anti-McLuhan faction,

[1:45:42] Bob Dobbs: and he was the subtle double agent.

[1:45:46] Bob Dobbs: He might agree with their objections.

[1:45:50] Bob Dobbs: to McLuhan,

[1:45:51] Bob Dobbs: and he would spell that more in his first book,

[1:45:53] Bob Dobbs: The Medium Is the Rear View Mirror.

[1:45:55] Bob Dobbs: But he kept loyal to the value of McLuhan,

[1:45:58] Bob Dobbs: way more than anybody else.

[1:46:00] Bob Dobbs: And so he ends up being the promoter of McLuhan,

[1:46:04] Bob Dobbs: even though he'd hung out with all the naysayers who had those exact things.

[1:46:09] Bob Dobbs: So I found the essay.

[1:46:09] Bob Dobbs: Here's what it's called.

[1:46:11] Bob Dobbs: From Literary Modernism to the Tantramar Marshes,

[1:46:14] Bob Dobbs: which are in Nova Scotia,

[1:46:16] Bob Dobbs: Anticipating McLuhan.

[1:46:17] Bob Dobbs: In British and Canadian Media Theory and Practice by Paul Tiessen at Wilfrid Laurier.

[1:46:23] Bob Dobbs: I'm pretty sure he was a student of

[1:46:26] Bob Dobbs: Don Theall and I think I have

[1:46:28] Bob Dobbs: Paul Tiessen's PhD in my garage because

[1:46:31] Bob Dobbs: I got a lot of his students'

[1:46:33] Bob Dobbs: PhDs when I got the library from Don.

[1:46:35] Bob Dobbs: So listen to this,

[1:46:37] Bob Dobbs: the abstract.

[1:46:38] Bob Dobbs: This study offers brief sketches of four 20th century cultural analysts and activists.

[1:46:43] Bob Dobbs: It examines their work and illustrates the extent to which a fairly sophisticated McLuhan sensibility was operating in Canada in intellectual and government circles from the

[1:46:52] Bob Dobbs: 1920s to the 1940s,

[1:46:53] Bob Dobbs: ten years prior to the arrival of Marshall McLuhan.

[1:46:56] Bob Dobbs: The four figures are John Grierson,

[1:46:58] Bob Dobbs: Wyndham Lewis,

[1:46:59] Bob Dobbs: Graham Spry.

[1:47:00] Bob Dobbs: Do you know Graham Spry?

[1:47:01] Bob Dobbs: Definitely,

[1:47:02] Cameron McEwen: yeah.

[1:47:04] Bob Dobbs: You do?

[1:47:05] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:47:05] Cameron McEwen: absolutely.

[1:47:07] Cameron McEwen: Graham Spry was married to the woman that was...

[1:47:12] Cameron McEwen: the right-hand person of Harold Innis.

[1:47:17] Bob Dobbs: Married to the co-worker of Innis,

[1:47:21] Bob Dobbs: secretary or something?

[1:47:22] Cameron McEwen: Not a secretary,

[1:47:25] Cameron McEwen: She was a grad student and a PhD and was sort of

[1:47:33] Cameron McEwen: Innis' designated follower or his,

[1:47:40] Cameron McEwen: what's the word,

[1:47:40] Cameron McEwen: the person that he wanted to

[1:47:43] Cameron McEwen: sort of hand off his life's work and she would continue it and when she got married to uh spry then uh uh Innis took that as a uh betrayal what what yeah what did he want her to do stay single uh

[1:48:00] Cameron McEwen: sort of i think so hey what was her name and there Marchand there were rumors that they were lovers i don't know if that's Wright not what was her name i wrote some i wrote some posts on I forget her name.

[1:48:13] Cameron McEwen: If you want me to look it up,

[1:48:14] Cameron McEwen: I can.

[1:48:15] Bob Dobbs: I'll look it up.

[1:48:17] Bob Dobbs: So Graeme Spry and Gerald Noxon,

[1:48:19] Bob Dobbs: N-O-X-O-N,

[1:48:20] Bob Dobbs: does that mean anything to you?

[1:48:22] Cameron McEwen: No.

[1:48:23] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[1:48:23] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[1:48:25] Bob Dobbs: this guy,

[1:48:25] Bob Dobbs: he's not including Innis,

[1:48:27] Bob Dobbs: but I guess this is the 20s and 40s.

[1:48:28] Bob Dobbs: This is supposedly before Innis,

[1:48:30] Bob Dobbs: but you probably wouldn't agree with that.

[1:48:32] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[1:48:33] Cameron McEwen: you see,

[1:48:35] Cameron McEwen: Innis sort of had the same fate as McLuhan.

[1:48:40] Cameron McEwen: Innis was regarded as a right-wing figure because he was always doing royal commissions,

[1:48:48] Cameron McEwen: and he was active in the administration of the University of

[1:48:55] Cameron McEwen: Toronto, and he was studying business people.

[1:48:59] Cameron McEwen: So even though

[1:49:01] Cameron McEwen: Innis today strikes us as a very sort of revolutionary thinker,

[1:49:07] Cameron McEwen: At the time,

[1:49:09] Cameron McEwen: the left...

[1:49:09] Cameron McEwen: wing guys didn't dig

[1:49:12] Cameron McEwen: Innis at all.

[1:49:13] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:49:14] Bob Dobbs: he was too part of the establishment.

[1:49:16] Bob Dobbs: He was a major figure.

[1:49:18] Bob Dobbs: So whereas McLuhan,

[1:49:20] Bob Dobbs: in the more decentralized

[1:49:22] Bob Dobbs: 60s and 70s,

[1:49:25] Bob Dobbs: never got to that level of status of Innis in university bureaucracy,

[1:49:30] Bob Dobbs: but it's a decentralized environment,

[1:49:32] Bob Dobbs: so they're suspicious of his floating work for the CIA.

[1:49:36] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[1:49:37] Bob Dobbs: The anti-environment.

[1:49:40] Bob Dobbs: Same complaint.

[1:49:45] Bob Dobbs: So here,

[1:49:45] Bob Dobbs: listen to this.

[1:49:46] Bob Dobbs: So during his adult...

[1:49:48] Bob Dobbs: What?

[1:49:49] Cameron McEwen: His Havelock.

[1:49:50] Cameron McEwen: mentioned as one of those left-wing thinkers in media?

[1:49:54] Cameron McEwen: No.

[1:49:55] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[1:49:55] Cameron McEwen: my God.

[1:49:56] Cameron McEwen: Havelock was doing great work in Canada in the

[1:50:02] Cameron McEwen: 1930s and

[1:50:03] Cameron McEwen: 1940s.

[1:50:05] Bob Dobbs: This is how Kroker ends his book.

[1:50:08] Bob Dobbs: He's saying the debate between

[1:50:11] Bob Dobbs: Havelock and McLuhan is the foundational debate of our issues today.

[1:50:17] Bob Dobbs: And then he makes a big story out of...

[1:50:21] Bob Dobbs: Havelock understood the Ivins of oral culture.

[1:50:24] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan celebrated The Coming Race retrieved oral culture in the technological utopia and did not see the reactionary,

[1:50:33] Bob Dobbs: conservative nature of oral culture that Havelock did.

[1:50:37] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[1:50:38] Bob Dobbs: I say to Kroker,

[1:50:39] Bob Dobbs: no,

[1:50:40] Bob Dobbs: that's the content of oral culture.

[1:50:41] Cameron McEwen: That's absolute nonsense.

[1:50:45] Bob Dobbs: That's right.

[1:50:46] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan predicted the tactile culture,

[1:50:48] Bob Dobbs: not the oral culture.

[1:50:49] Bob Dobbs: That was the big rearview mirror for people,

[1:50:52] Bob Dobbs: especially in understanding McLuhan.

[1:50:53] Bob Dobbs: So,

[1:50:54] Bob Dobbs: yes,

[1:50:54] Bob Dobbs: he makes a big it's like he's trying to make he's trying to be part of the Toronto School of Communication and find an issue that he invents to put himself in a critical position that all you guys don't notice the core,

[1:51:08] Bob Dobbs: deep,

[1:51:09] Bob Dobbs: ground debate that McLuhan and Havelock were having.

[1:51:12] Bob Dobbs: And it's all,

[1:51:12] Bob Dobbs: like you say,

[1:51:13] Bob Dobbs: nonsense.

[1:51:14] Bob Dobbs: So that's how he ends his book.

[1:51:15] Bob Dobbs: So not to

[1:51:17] Bob Dobbs: Not too cool there.

[1:51:18] Bob Dobbs: But he never,

[1:51:18] Bob Dobbs: Kroker was never proper and accurate around McLuhan.

[1:51:23] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:51:24] Cameron McEwen: I agree.

[1:51:25] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:51:25] Bob Dobbs: So we'll end with this.

[1:51:27] Bob Dobbs: You've got to go.

[1:51:28] Bob Dobbs: Noxon,

[1:51:29] Bob Dobbs: during his adult years in Canada,

[1:51:31] Bob Dobbs: Gerald Noxon worked for the NFB from 40 to 41,

[1:51:34] Bob Dobbs: with the CBC from 41 to 47.

[1:51:36] Bob Dobbs: His career is yet another kind of articulation of some of the strands of thought and practice which I,

[1:51:41] Bob Dobbs: Paul,

[1:51:42] Bob Dobbs: am offering as a succinct summary of early McLuhan.

[1:51:45] Bob Dobbs: For he was active for at least 10 years in British film and radio circles,

[1:51:48] Bob Dobbs: beginning in the late 20s,

[1:51:50] Bob Dobbs: and then in Canadian film and radio circles during the 40s.

[1:51:52] Bob Dobbs: Like Spry,

[1:51:53] Bob Dobbs: he advocated for Canada a nationalist model of broadcast control,

[1:51:58] Bob Dobbs: but looking beyond Canada to the world,

[1:51:59] Bob Dobbs: he envisioned by 1945 a global audience for a specifically Canadian media voice.

[1:52:05] Bob Dobbs: Born in 1910,

[1:52:10] Bob Dobbs: such a program,

[1:52:12] Bob Dobbs: Noxon argued from Cambridge.

[1:52:14] Bob Dobbs: would,

[1:52:15] Bob Dobbs: as it did in the

[1:52:16] Bob Dobbs: USSR, create a defense against the American Hollywood system.

[1:52:20] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:52:20] Bob Dobbs: there's your point.

[1:52:21] Bob Dobbs: So he was one of those guys.

[1:52:23] Bob Dobbs: I guess you could say the left,

[1:52:25] Bob Dobbs: right?

[1:52:27] Bob Dobbs: So that's Noxon.

[1:52:29] Bob Dobbs: Now you know.

[1:52:30] Bob Dobbs: So I'm going to send you this article.

[1:52:31] Bob Dobbs: You might find it interesting.

[1:52:33] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:52:33] Cameron McEwen: I would.

[1:52:33] Cameron McEwen: I'd like to see that.

[1:52:35] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:52:35] Bob Dobbs: and in the article,

[1:52:37] Bob Dobbs: what I learned from it,

[1:52:38] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:52:39] Bob Dobbs: when I read it like 10 years ago or something,

[1:52:42] Bob Dobbs: the Tantramar

[1:52:43] Bob Dobbs: is near Amherst,

[1:52:44] Bob Dobbs: Nova Scotia,

[1:52:45] Bob Dobbs: near where Lewis was born.

[1:52:48] Bob Dobbs: And they built a tower there in 1939,

[1:52:51] Bob Dobbs: which was the way the Canadians could communicate with Europe through

[1:52:55] Bob Dobbs: World War II.

[1:52:57] Bob Dobbs: So here's when the tower was built right by Lewis.

[1:53:00] Bob Dobbs: And we can consider Lewis actually the fountainhead of this stuff,

[1:53:03] Bob Dobbs: a lot of it.

[1:53:04] Bob Dobbs: And he's there born at the fountainhead where the tower is going to be.

[1:53:13] Bob Dobbs: What's that?

[1:53:13] Bob Dobbs: 80 to 40,

[1:53:16] Bob Dobbs: 60 years later,

[1:53:18] Bob Dobbs: after he's born,

[1:53:19] Bob Dobbs: they put a tower there.

[1:53:21] Bob Dobbs: So there's that element in the Tantramar Marshes.

[1:53:25] Bob Dobbs: Okay?

[1:53:26] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:53:27] Bob Dobbs: So this is your homework.

[1:53:30] Bob Dobbs: Till we meet again.

[1:53:32] Cameron McEwen: Okay.

[1:53:33] Cameron McEwen: I know that the woman that married

[1:53:40] Cameron McEwen: Spry, her first name was Irene.

[1:53:43] Cameron McEwen: I'm trying to think of her last name,

[1:53:45] Cameron McEwen: but I haven't been able to.

[1:53:47] Cameron McEwen: But I'll send you that.

[1:53:48] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:53:48] Bob Dobbs: when you find it in your...

[1:53:50] Cameron McEwen: You send me the essay that you're talking about,

[1:53:53] Cameron McEwen: and

[1:53:54] Cameron McEwen: I will send you the information on Harold Innis.

[1:53:58] Cameron McEwen: And

[1:53:59] Bob Dobbs: I have the biography of

[1:54:02] Bob Dobbs: Innis, which goes into the great influence of Lewis on him.

[1:54:06] Bob Dobbs: I'll just walk out and look up

[1:54:09] Bob Dobbs: Irene in there.

[1:54:09] Bob Dobbs: I might come across her.

[1:54:10] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:54:11] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[1:54:11] Cameron McEwen: that's great.

[1:54:12] Cameron McEwen: quote-unquote great influence of

[1:54:15] Cameron McEwen: Lewis on Innis.

[1:54:17] Cameron McEwen: That's nonsense,

[1:54:18] Cameron McEwen: too.

[1:54:19] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[1:54:19] Bob Dobbs: no,

[1:54:19] Bob Dobbs: what are you saying?

[1:54:21] Bob Dobbs: Is it

[1:54:22] Bob Dobbs: Havelock and...

[1:54:25] Cameron McEwen: No,

[1:54:27] Cameron McEwen: I'm saying it's nonsense that

[1:54:30] Cameron McEwen: Innis was greatly influenced by Lewis.

[1:54:32] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[1:54:33] Bob Dobbs: you'll have to read the book.

[1:54:35] Bob Dobbs: He lays out a good case.

[1:54:37] Cameron McEwen: I've read the book,

[1:54:38] Cameron McEwen: believe me.

[1:54:40] Bob Dobbs: You've read the book?

[1:54:42] Cameron McEwen: The only reason that

[1:54:44] Cameron McEwen: Innis knew anything at all about Lewis was that he met

[1:54:48] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan in 1947,

[1:54:52] Cameron McEwen: and he would have got the...

[1:54:56] Cameron McEwen: essay on Lewis that McLuhan wrote in

[1:54:59] Cameron McEwen: 43 in St.

[1:55:01] Cameron McEwen: Louis.

[1:55:03] Cameron McEwen: And that's full of quotes from The Art of Being Ruled and from

[1:55:09] Cameron McEwen: The

[1:55:10] Cameron McEwen: Time and Western Man.

[1:55:12] Cameron McEwen: And those are the only things that

[1:55:15] Cameron McEwen: Innis ever quotes from Innis.

[1:55:18] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[1:55:19] Bob Dobbs: maybe that's all he needs to quote from Lewis.

[1:55:21] Bob Dobbs: That's all he needs to quote.

[1:55:23] Bob Dobbs: He got the basic,

[1:55:23] Bob Dobbs: he missed the message.

[1:55:25] Cameron McEwen: Okay,

[1:55:25] Cameron McEwen: but that's not reading an essay of McLuhan and talking to McLuhan about Lewis.

[1:55:33] Cameron McEwen: Those aren't the same things as being deeply influenced by him.

[1:55:37] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[1:55:37] Bob Dobbs: no.

[1:55:38] Bob Dobbs: How about this?

[1:55:39] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan,

[1:55:40] Bob Dobbs: right after that,

[1:55:41] Bob Dobbs: he does the bias of communication.

[1:55:43] Bob Dobbs: After he hears about Lewis,

[1:55:44] Bob Dobbs: reads Lewis,

[1:55:45] Bob Dobbs: gets it,

[1:55:46] Bob Dobbs: sees how it relates to his work,

[1:55:47] Bob Dobbs: and then produces Empire Communications.

[1:55:49] Bob Dobbs: And the bias in communication.

[1:55:51] Bob Dobbs: So I don't know what you're saying there.

[1:55:54] Bob Dobbs: Lewis can have a quick influence.

[1:55:56] Bob Dobbs: The final complete.

[1:55:58] Bob Dobbs: The final thing that pushes him into being Innis and getting it straight.

[1:56:02] Bob Dobbs: And McLuhan,

[1:56:04] Bob Dobbs: so

[1:56:05] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan then pretends that he doesn't really know Innis until he reads

[1:56:09] Bob Dobbs: Bias in Communication and it's quoting

[1:56:12] Bob Dobbs: Lewis. No,

[1:56:13] Bob Dobbs: it quotes his mechanical bride and he's stunned by that.

[1:56:17] Cameron McEwen: Nah,

[1:56:18] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[1:56:18] Bob Dobbs: I heard him say that.

[1:56:19] Bob Dobbs: This is in the 60s he said this.

[1:56:22] Bob Dobbs: You know that story.

[1:56:23] Bob Dobbs: He claimed that that's how he found out about Innis.

[1:56:26] Cameron McEwen: Bob,

[1:56:27] Cameron McEwen: we've talked about this in the past.

[1:56:29] Cameron McEwen: I know.

[1:56:30] Bob Dobbs: Then we find out that he knew Innis in the 40s.

[1:56:33] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[1:56:36] Bob Dobbs: So McLuhan made Innis into a McLuhan by giving him...

[1:56:40] Bob Dobbs: The poison of Lewis.

[1:56:43] Bob Dobbs: I rest my case with that statement there.

[1:56:45] Cameron McEwen: What you would have to do is you would have to reread the

[1:56:53] Cameron McEwen: 1946 book of Innis,

[1:56:55] Cameron McEwen: and you would see that in 1946 he was well on his way to communications theory.

[1:57:03] Cameron McEwen: And this was before he ever met or heard of McLuhan.

[1:57:08] Cameron McEwen: No,

[1:57:08] Cameron McEwen: no,

[1:57:08] Cameron McEwen: that's right.

[1:57:09] Bob Dobbs: He was ready.

[1:57:10] Bob Dobbs: But Lewis made,

[1:57:12] Bob Dobbs: he sort of read Lewis and understood and said,

[1:57:14] Bob Dobbs: gee,

[1:57:14] Bob Dobbs: Lewis got there before me.

[1:57:16] Bob Dobbs: And then that gives him confidence.

[1:57:18] Bob Dobbs: And at the same time,

[1:57:19] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan is deeply being influenced by Ezra Pound,

[1:57:22] Bob Dobbs: the late 40s,

[1:57:23] Bob Dobbs: early 50s.

[1:57:24] Bob Dobbs: There's the Pound thing that nobody talks about.

[1:57:26] Bob Dobbs: That's what Ted Carpenter used to say.

[1:57:30] Bob Dobbs: Pound was the big influence on McLuhan.

[1:57:32] Bob Dobbs: And I've seen some evidence of that,

[1:57:34] Bob Dobbs: but that's another story.

[1:57:36] Bob Dobbs: But the,

[1:57:37] Bob Dobbs: so we have an interesting.

[1:57:38] Bob Dobbs: That's right.

[1:57:40] Cameron McEwen: We can talk about this another day.

[1:57:42] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[1:57:45] Cameron McEwen: Pound definitely did have a big influence on McLuhan,

[1:57:48] Cameron McEwen: and it was associated with the influence that film in general and Eisenstein in particular had on McLuhan.

[1:57:58] Cameron McEwen: So

[1:57:58] Cameron McEwen: Eisenstein was a person whose theory played up the importance of the ideogram.

[1:58:07] Bob Dobbs: Yes.

[1:58:07] Cameron McEwen: And.

[1:58:08] Cameron McEwen: Then McLuhan finds out that

[1:58:10] Cameron McEwen: Pound had been talking about the ideogram.

[1:58:15] Cameron McEwen: So then he reads Pound and Eisenstein together in the late

[1:58:22] Cameron McEwen: 1940s, and that's one side of what could be called the globalization of

[1:58:32] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan sensibility.

[1:58:34] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:58:34] Bob Dobbs: that gets him out of the book bias.

[1:58:37] Bob Dobbs: where he says,

[1:58:38] Bob Dobbs: I've been reading English literature for 20 years and wasting my time.

[1:58:41] Bob Dobbs: Why didn't somebody tell me about this stuff?

[1:58:43] Bob Dobbs: Right?

[1:58:44] Cameron McEwen: That's right.

[1:58:45] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:58:45] Cameron McEwen: but then he goes on to teach

[1:58:48] Cameron McEwen: English literature for another 30 years.

[1:58:52] Bob Dobbs: He never taught English literature.

[1:58:54] Bob Dobbs: Look,

[1:58:54] Bob Dobbs: he taught media.

[1:58:55] Bob Dobbs: Come on.

[1:58:56] Bob Dobbs: He Wright in 53 that Finnegans Wake is all about media's art forms.

[1:59:00] Bob Dobbs: Nobody knew what that meant.

[1:59:03] Bob Dobbs: And that's how he interpreted it.

[1:59:05] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:59:05] Bob Dobbs: he dropped English in the early

[1:59:08] Bob Dobbs: 50s.

[1:59:09] Cameron McEwen: Well, let's say,

[1:59:10] Cameron McEwen: let's say,

[1:59:11] Cameron McEwen: but he continued to write his

[1:59:17] Cameron McEwen: T.S. Eliot book.

[1:59:19] Cameron McEwen: He continued to write what are fairly recognizable essays in English literature.

[1:59:28] Cameron McEwen: So he was,

[1:59:30] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was a very fragmented guy.

[1:59:34] Cameron McEwen: And we both agree that that's his great virtue.

[1:59:38] Cameron McEwen: But in his fragmentation,

[1:59:40] Cameron McEwen: it becomes ridiculous to say that,

[1:59:43] Cameron McEwen: you know,

[1:59:43] Cameron McEwen: one person or one movement or something was a decisive thing.

[1:59:48] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:59:49] Bob Dobbs: and I would have to go back to my quadrophrenia point that he never gave up English studies,

[1:59:53] Bob Dobbs: but he also did.

[1:59:54] Bob Dobbs: He included so many new worlds.

[1:59:58] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:59:58] Cameron McEwen: so the great word in what you just said is also.

[2:00:03] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[2:00:03] Cameron McEwen: So

[2:00:05] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan was able to confront the complexities of the modern world and find a way,

[2:00:12] Cameron McEwen: as we said earlier,

[2:00:14] Cameron McEwen: to surfboard on them.

[2:00:15] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[2:00:17] Bob Dobbs: And what I always say is I'll mention something,

[2:00:19] Bob Dobbs: he says something,

[2:00:20] Bob Dobbs: then I'll add something,

[2:00:21] Bob Dobbs: and you go,

[2:00:21] Bob Dobbs: as well.

[2:00:24] Bob Dobbs: That's Marshall,

[2:00:25] Bob Dobbs: as well.

[2:00:26] Bob Dobbs: He went over there,

[2:00:26] Bob Dobbs: as well.

[2:00:28] Bob Dobbs: Then he did this,

[2:00:28] Bob Dobbs: as well.

[2:00:29] Bob Dobbs: As well,

[2:00:29] Bob Dobbs: he did this,

[2:00:32] Bob Dobbs: right?

[2:00:33] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[2:00:34] Cameron McEwen: You get that?

[2:00:35] Cameron McEwen: Yes,

[2:00:35] Cameron McEwen: sir.

[2:00:36] Bob Dobbs: All right.

[2:00:36] Bob Dobbs: So we end with a fine flourish of clashing symbols.

[2:00:45] Cameron McEwen: Okay,

[2:00:45] Cameron McEwen: good.

[2:00:45] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[2:00:46] Bob Dobbs: thanks a lot,

[2:00:46] Bob Dobbs: Ewen Cameron.

[2:00:47] Cameron McEwen: Send me that essay.

[2:00:48] Cameron McEwen: I'll be interested to see it.

[2:00:49] Bob Dobbs: Right now.

[2:00:50] Bob Dobbs: Okay.

[2:00:51] Bob Dobbs: Good,

[2:00:51] Cameron McEwen: good.

[2:00:51] Bob Dobbs: Talk to you soon.

[2:00:53] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[2:00:53] Cameron McEwen: look forward.

[2:00:53] Cameron McEwen: Bye-bye.

[2:00:54] Bob Dobbs: Bye.