McLuhan: World War I. And a friend is saying, “Hey Bill, what are you doing down there?” And he says, “Well, if you know a better ’ole lead me to it.” He’s using it for protection. But the better ’ole became a classic grievance joke. But you cannot have any kind of humour without a grievance. That is the gestalt, the figure-ground. So when the grievances get so bad that there are no more jokes, then you are in trouble. But now I mentioned this peeping through—the light coming through the situation. That is called, by the way, phenomenology. It took me a long time to discover that phenomenologists manage to cover their tracks pretty well. They like to make out that they’re a very serious bunch, hard-headed, logical people. The Heideggers and the Husserls and so on. All they’re telling you—and this has been ever since Hegel and his phenomenological stuff, ever since Hegel—all they have been telling you is this, that
