commentary on his work is pro and con, hot and 
cool, and in the end, irredeemably contradictory 
(Macmillan, 1992). His ideas have always held 
greater appeal for artists than for the grim or the 
politically correct, whether from right or left. In the 
1960s, epithets flew, and missed their mark. “The 
darling of Madison Avenue,” “fetishist of 
technological determinism,” “enemy of the book,” 
“millennial optimist.” Canada’s intellectual comet 
became a moving target for critics motivated by 
their own agendas, the light of his insights 
obscured by the heat of the controversy.

A legion of academics—their numbers exceeded