Series Contents
Continued from: 7.0

Part 8.0:
Version 1.2: December 26, 2019 Revision

Unless specified otherwise, page numbers and quotations are from Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987) [1]. Internet references are cited as accessed on or before December 12, 2019. Topics for further research are underlined.

Specifics about Delos and McLuhan’s Fellow Attendees

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delos_Symposium [accessed December 5, 2019]

The Delos Symposium was a forum for discussion and debate over issues of Ekistics, or the study of human settlements, . . .

The Symposium was organized by the Greek architect-planner, Constantinos Doxiadis . . . and was held each June from 1962 through 1974 . . .. The proceedings were published in Ekistics Journal. Each year, prior to the Symposium, the Athens Ekistic Week was held, involving the Symposium participants in a larger meeting. . . .

According to this Wikipedia article, ideas “incubated” at Delos, such as “Habitat Forum,” were “transformed into institutions, and United Nations programs.”

Wikipedia includes the following “notable attendees,” and I have highlighted the ones mentioned in Letters:

Barbara Ward (economist)
Margaret Mead (anthropologist)
Buckminster Fuller (technologist)
Arnold Toynbee (historian)
Edmund Bacon (urban designer)
Vikram Sarabhai (scientist)
Marshall McLuhan (philosopher and public intellectual)
Conrad Waddington (geneticist)
Richard L. Meier (urban planner)
Jaqueline Tyrwhitt (architect)
Kenzō Tange (architect)
Sigfried Giedion (historian)
Fumihiko Maki (architect)
Walter Christaller (geographer)
Grady Clay (journalist)
W.W. Rostow (economist)
Whitney Young (human rights activist)
Jonas Salk (scientist) [confirming that “Salt” in Letters was a typo]
Alexander Christakis (physicist)

References for this Wikipedia article:

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun and Thomas Keenan, ed., New media, old media: a history and theory reader, p. 394, ISBN 0-415-94224-1
Wigley, Mark, 2001, Network Fever, in Grey Room (MIT Press Journal), 4, pp. 82-122.

Besides those, there were a few others mentioned in Letters, including Stewart Bates, Herman Kahn, Gyorgy Kepes, and Sir Robert Watson Watt.

(edit: Dec. 26/19) From another source, I want to add a few to the list of known Delos participants. https://funnelme.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/from-delos-symposia-to-the-www-conference/ also mentions: architect Sir Robert Matthew, architect Charles Abrams, and microbiologist and environmentalist Rene Dubos.

About Fumihiko Maki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumihiko_Maki

. . . a Japanese architect who teaches at Keio University SFC. In 1993, he received the Pritzker Prize for his work, which often explores pioneering uses of new materials and fuses the cultures of east and west.

After completing a $330 million expansion of the headquarters of the United Nations in Manhattan, Maki designed Tower 4 at the former World Trade Center site which opened in 2013.

The original World Trade Center was designed by Minoru Yamasaki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoru_Yamasaki.

About Barbara Ward

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Ward,_Baroness_Jackson_of_Lodsworth

Marshall McLuhan’s correspondence to Barbara Ward is mentioned in Part 7 along with some of her bio.

Barbara Ward (1914-1981) was very influential in global affairs and world planning, as described in this post: https://canadianliberty.com/history-of-unscientific-global-warming-theory-the-real-answer-to-the-uncertainties-of-nature-is-economic-growth/.

From the Wikipedia article:

Ward’s full name and title: Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth.

She was awarded a DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1974 and was made a Life peer in 1976.

. . . a British economist and writer interested in the problems of developing countries. She urged Western governments to share their prosperity [our taxes] with the rest of the world [as if it goes to the peasants] and in the 1960s turned her attention to environmental questions as well. She was an early advocate of sustainable development before this term became familiar and was well known as a journalist, lecturer and broadcaster. Ward was adviser to policy-makers in the UK, United States and elsewhere.

And so, in this one example of the life of a powerful oligarch, we have a description of how “democracy” really works. One woman, one million votes.

Ward was involved with Roman Catholic organizations. She worked for the British Ministry of Information during World War II. She became a governor of the BBC. Ward supported the Marshall Plan, a “strong Europe” and a “European free trade area.” She married Australian Commander Robert Jackson, a UN administrator. Much of her work in the U. S. was funded by the Carnegie Foundation. She was an adviser to Robert McNamara at the World Bank and Lyndon B Johnson. You can read my posts on McNamara’s World Bank efforts at population control (not to mention his Vietnam War efforts at population control).

Like her buddies (her fellow “peers” so to speak), Ward supposedly believed the earth had limited resources [meaning that “too many people” prevent the elites from monopolizing power and resources] and she wrote Spaceship Earth [in order to make you believe this–and most of you do].

Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet was written for the 1972 UN Stockholm conference on the Human Environment. The report was commissioned by Maurice Strong, secretary general of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment.

She founded the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Her last book was Progress for a Small Planet.

Wikipedia lists these as affiliations:

1972: Stockholm Conference on Human Environment (Earth Summit I)
1974: Cocoyoc Declaration (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cocoyoc_Declaration&action=edit&redlink=1 – search link), UNEP/United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Symposium on Patterns of Resource Use, Environment and Development strategies
1976: Vancouver Habitat Conference on Human Settlements

Wikipedia lists some of the presenters at the “Barbara Ward Lectures”, which include representatives of various UN organizations, including Gro Harlem Brundtland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gro_Harlem_Brundtland

Ward co-wrote and appeared in the documentary film Survival of Spaceship Earth (1972).

In my opinion, a sensible person is naturally “concerned about the environment” around because they are concerned about the quality of their own life and that of others. And I believe that most people are concerned about others (and themselves) not being able to provide for themselves and live happily. In fact, people are always being victimized by those who think they are entitled to dump on them–whether its bombs, toxic chemicals or lies.

I don’t believe that true love and concern for other human beings is compatible with preventing them from accessing the earth’s resources in a way that is respectful to others. Trying to stop a corporation from dumping waste in your river is one thing [who has the power in that situation and why?]. But if “concern for the environment” means lording it over others with raw power and trying to prevent them from using resources accessible to them–to stop them from surviving, prospering and reproducing (limiting growth)–then there is nothing decent about that. Ward represents the mainstream media and the elites it serves. I think the decades of media messages embedded in our minds about “too many people” should be reconsidered.

References

Note: unless specified otherwise, Internet references are cited as accessed on or before December 13, 2019.

[1] Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987). Selected and Edited by: Matie Molinaro, Corinne McLuhan, William Toye. Oxford University Press, 1987.

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