and was drawing packed houses as he held forth on topics such as the use of sex in advertising, a
discourse that had led to his first book, The Mechanical Bride , in 1951. He was a tall, slender man, handsome in a lairdly Scottish way, who played the droll don to a T, popping off deadpan three-liners-not oneliners but three-liners—peopie couldn’t forget.
One time I asked him how it was that Pierre Trudeau managed to stay in power as Prime Minister through all the twists and turns of Canadian politics. Without even the twitch of a smile McLuhan responded, “It’s simple. He has a French name, he thinks like an Englishman, and he looks like an Indian. We all feel very guilty about the Indians here in Canada.”
Another time I was in San Francisco doing stories on both McLuhan and topless restaurants, each of which was a new phenomenon. So I got the bright idea of taking the great communications theorist to a topless restaurant called the Off Broadway. Neither of us had ever seen such a thing. Here were scores of businessmen in drab suits skulking at tables in the dark as spotlights followed the waitresses, each of whom had astounding silicone-enlarged breasts and wore nothing but high heels, a G-string, and the rouge on her nipples. Frankly, I was shocked and speechless. Not McLuhan.
“Very interesting,” he said.
“What is, Marshall?”
He nodded at the waitresses. “They’re wearing … us.”
“What do you mean, Marshall?”
He said it very slowly, to make sure I got it:
“They’re … putting … us … on.”
But the three-liners and the pop culture seminar were nothing compared to what came next, in the wake of Teilhard’s death: namely, McLuhanism.
McLuhanism was Marshall’s synthesis of the ideas of two men. One was his fellow Canadian, the economic historian Harold Innis, who had written two books arguing that new technologies were primal, fundamental forces steering human history. The other was Teilhard. McLuhan was scrupulous about crediting scholars who had influenced him, so much so that he described his first book of communications
theory, The Gutenberg Galaxy , as “a footnote to the work of Harold Innis.” In the case of Teilhard, however, he was caught in a bind. McLuhan’s “global village” was nothing other than Teilhard’s “noösphere,” but the Church had declared Teilhard’s work heterodox, and McLuhan was not merely a Roman Catholic, he was a convert. He had been raised as a Baptist but had converted to Catholicism while in England studying at Cambridge during the 1930s, the palmy days of England’s great Catholic literary intellectuals, G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. Like most converts, he was highly devout. So in his own writings he mentioned neither Teilhard nor the two-step theory of evolution that was the foundation of Teilhard’s worldview. Only a single reference, a mere obiter dictum , attached any religious significance whatsoever to the global village: “The Christian concept of the mystical body—all men as members of the body of Christ—this becomes technologically a fact under electronic conditions.”
I don’t have the slightest doubt that what fascinated him about television was the possibility it might help make real Teilhard’s dream of the Christian unity of all souls on earth. At the same time, he was well aware that he was publishing his major works, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) and Understanding Media (1964), at a moment when even the slightest whiff of religiosity was taboo, if he cared to command the stage in the intellectual community. And that, I assure you, he did care to do. His father had been an obscure insurance and real estate salesman, but his mother, Elsie, had been an actress who toured Canada giving dramatic readings, and he had inherited her love of the limelight. So he presented his theory in entirely secular terms, arguing that a new, dominant medium such as television altered human consciousness by literally changing
discourse that had led to his first book, The Mechanical Bride , in 1951. He was a tall, slender man, handsome in a lairdly Scottish way, who played the droll don to a T, popping off deadpan three-liners-not oneliners but three-liners—peopie couldn’t forget.
One time I asked him how it was that Pierre Trudeau managed to stay in power as Prime Minister through all the twists and turns of Canadian politics. Without even the twitch of a smile McLuhan responded, “It’s simple. He has a French name, he thinks like an Englishman, and he looks like an Indian. We all feel very guilty about the Indians here in Canada.”
Another time I was in San Francisco doing stories on both McLuhan and topless restaurants, each of which was a new phenomenon. So I got the bright idea of taking the great communications theorist to a topless restaurant called the Off Broadway. Neither of us had ever seen such a thing. Here were scores of businessmen in drab suits skulking at tables in the dark as spotlights followed the waitresses, each of whom had astounding silicone-enlarged breasts and wore nothing but high heels, a G-string, and the rouge on her nipples. Frankly, I was shocked and speechless. Not McLuhan.
“Very interesting,” he said.
“What is, Marshall?”
He nodded at the waitresses. “They’re wearing … us.”
“What do you mean, Marshall?”
He said it very slowly, to make sure I got it:
“They’re … putting … us … on.”
But the three-liners and the pop culture seminar were nothing compared to what came next, in the wake of Teilhard’s death: namely, McLuhanism.
McLuhanism was Marshall’s synthesis of the ideas of two men. One was his fellow Canadian, the economic historian Harold Innis, who had written two books arguing that new technologies were primal, fundamental forces steering human history. The other was Teilhard. McLuhan was scrupulous about crediting scholars who had influenced him, so much so that he described his first book of communications
theory, The Gutenberg Galaxy , as “a footnote to the work of Harold Innis.” In the case of Teilhard, however, he was caught in a bind. McLuhan’s “global village” was nothing other than Teilhard’s “noösphere,” but the Church had declared Teilhard’s work heterodox, and McLuhan was not merely a Roman Catholic, he was a convert. He had been raised as a Baptist but had converted to Catholicism while in England studying at Cambridge during the 1930s, the palmy days of England’s great Catholic literary intellectuals, G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. Like most converts, he was highly devout. So in his own writings he mentioned neither Teilhard nor the two-step theory of evolution that was the foundation of Teilhard’s worldview. Only a single reference, a mere obiter dictum , attached any religious significance whatsoever to the global village: “The Christian concept of the mystical body—all men as members of the body of Christ—this becomes technologically a fact under electronic conditions.”
I don’t have the slightest doubt that what fascinated him about television was the possibility it might help make real Teilhard’s dream of the Christian unity of all souls on earth. At the same time, he was well aware that he was publishing his major works, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) and Understanding Media (1964), at a moment when even the slightest whiff of religiosity was taboo, if he cared to command the stage in the intellectual community. And that, I assure you, he did care to do. His father had been an obscure insurance and real estate salesman, but his mother, Elsie, had been an actress who toured Canada giving dramatic readings, and he had inherited her love of the limelight. So he presented his theory in entirely secular terms, arguing that a new, dominant medium such as television altered human consciousness by literally changing
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