McLuhan: Media ecology means that if print, or if the written word, is in danger, it can be rescued by some other medium. Or propped up. And don’t just let something like that go down the drain without any counteractivity.

Forsdale: How do you feel about the back-to-basics movement where every teacher, sensing the crisis because every parent is screaming “My kid can’t read anymore,” the tendency of the school is to say “Away with everything but print?”

McLuhan: It’s whistling in the dark, isn’t it? I mean, the one thing they cannot possibly obtain by that wishful attitude is basics. There’s nothing basic about the basic program. They’ve never looked into why the need for basics. They’ve never studied the media or the effects of the media on