problems is impotence—that is, both physical and psychic. I can’t do nothing about it. I’ve got no control; I’ve got no control over the situation. It fits in beautifully with what you’re talking about.

McLuhan: Typically, the Greek, not Celsus, who was the Greek medical man? Gaela. He was a mechanist, whereas most of the world, especially the Hellenic and Semitic world, saw the sick person as sinful, as suffering from sin. The Semitic idea of disease was sin, and the Gaelan or Greek idea was mechanism. Modern medicine is still mechanical: one cure for one disease. The pill will cure you of this. If they find the right therapeutic pill, then you’re O.K. The idea is gradually coming that cancer is not a disease but a way of life. And that cardiac problems are also not a disease but a way of life. They are environmental.