A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

When you scrap nature, then everything looks like pollution, including nature. When you go into spaceship Earth, anything that is not programmed is pollution. I am using Barbara Ward’s phrase: ”spaceship earth.” The spaceships were the first totally programmed human environments. You had to take “nature” with you if you were going to leave this planet. We have thus learned how to program environments totally. When you begin to program the total human environment it is like restoring a ruined Rembrandt. All the previous tinkerings look like defacements.
“The Hardware-Software Mergers: How Successful Have They Been?” Speech given at conference, Reappraisal of the Educational Technology Industry, University of Chicago, November 16-18, 1969. Transcript, p 5
Year: 1969
Chapter: Planet, Nature
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan