Thanks for the publicity — some clarifications:

Here's Marshall McLuhan, on page 102 of The Medium and the Light: "In Jesus Christ, there is no distance or separation between the medium and the message: it is the one case where we can say that the medium and the message are fully one and the same."

In other words, the medium is the messiah. All else is media, or false messiah. The true medium can only come through the true medium; when you put the true medium through a false medium, you get a muddled middleman. A Jesus under plastic. A Brand Jesus. A Churchianity.

So what looks like Postman being a "kermudgen" and McLuhan an optimist, is actually Postman being somewhat biblically aliterate in comparison to McLuhan (esp in the New Testament, for obvious reasons), but also, McLuhan himself was decidedly NOT an optimist. Here he is on that very subject, from the same book:

"I have never been an optimist or a pessimist. I'm an apocalyptic only. Our only hope is apocalypse. Apocalypse is not gloom. Its salvation. No Christian could ever be an optimist or a pessimist: that's a purely secular state of mind."

See the whole chapel talk here, by clicking on the March 4 Flash Video at: http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn/chapelspring09.htm

Would love to carry on the conversation in person — I'm in Chicagoland, as you noted.

Cheers,

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