QUESTION: Do you consider yourself an artist?
MCLUHAN: Entirely. Always have been. Nothing else.
QUESTION: Then why (he doctorate, the structures of academe?
MCLUHAN: Well, I have never attempted to win the respect of my academic colleagues. I have flaunted them right, left and centre, as you can tell from their response. No, I am not in their league, not playing their bureaucratic, pedantic game. It doesn’t interest me.
I am completely against the culture’s grain. However, the advantage of going against the grain is that you know when you are on course.
QUESTION: If people accepted your insights...?
MCLUHAN: I would panic. I would assume they lost their noodle.