these things that had been levelled at him, or 
looking for power or rewards. He was very 
different than all that. However, I still believe that 
a certain kind of dialogue—beyond the academic 
world—with an audience that the academic world 
had not been seeking before, finding relevance for 
an academic in this world—these were encouraging 
features of McLuhan’s relationship to the public. 
That does not answer why there aren’t any more 
McLuhans. I think that the one thing that prevents 
other really intelligent people from being closer to 
how McLuhan dealt with things is that they have a 
tendency to moralize very quickly. The moment 
they’ve got a system they want to sit on it and