"At the moment our only choices are personal ones. Though we may not be able to do anything whatever about genetic engineering or neutron bombs, individually we can say "no" to television. We can throw our sets in the garbage pail where they belong. But while this is an act that may be very satisfying and beneficial, in making this act we must never forget that, like choosing not to drive a car, it is no expression of democratic freedom. In democratic terms, this individual act is meaningless, as it has no effect at all upon the wider society, which continues as before. In fact, this act disconnects us from the system and leaves us less able to participate in and affect it than before. Like Huxley's "savage," or like today's young people who drop out to rural farms, we find ourselves even further removed from participation in the central processes that direct our society, our culture, our politics, and our economic organization. We are struggling in a classic double bind."
Jerry Mander, "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television," postscript.
2 comments:
something tells me i'm going to want to punch this guy in the face.
Something tells me by the time I post this you already will have [punched him in the face, that is]. Hopefully you will have recorded the assualt and put it on youtube! Given your editing skills, I'm betting the sucker goes viral - double whammy, Manderpants!
(Of course, I thought of you a lot while reading the book.)
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