happens is that, around the end of the ’80s, there 
was a great perception of the fact, an awareness 
of the fact that once again, we are encountering 
some extraordinary techno-cultural 
transformations. At this point I think it becomes 
quite clear, looking back, that what McLuhan 
offered was a kind of theory of cultural 
transformation. Now why do I say that? Because if 
events had not seemed to resonate with the kinds 
of patterns that he was talking about, he would 
have been seen as a poet. Instead, suddenly he 
began to emerge as a kind of theorist or a kind of 
philosopher, that is someone who had things to 
say at a previous time that were now relevant in a