Certainty Abolishes Hope, And Robs

Our Politics, Religion, News, Athletics, Education And Commerce Have Been Transformed Into Congenial Adjuncts Of Show Business, Largely Without Protest Or Even Much Popular Notice. The Result Is That We Are A People On The Verge Of Amusing Ourselves To Death.

Remember: In Order For A Perception To Change One Must Be Frustrated In One's Actions Or Change One's Purpose.

The Line-by-line, Sequential, Continuous Form Of The Printed Page Slowly Began To Lose Its Resonance As A Metaphor Of How Knowledge Was To Be Acquired And How The World Was To Be Understood. "knowing" The Facts Took On A New Meaning, For It Did Not Imply That One Understood Implications, Background, Or Connections. Telegraphic Discourse Permitted No Time For Historical Perspectives And Gave No Priority To The Qualitative. To The Telegraph, Intelligence Meant Knowing Of Lots Of Things, Not Knowing About Them.

Everything In Our Background Has Prepared Us To Know And Resist A Prison When The Gates Begin To Close Around Us . . . But What If There Are No Cries Of Anguish To Be Heard? Who Is Prepared To Take Arms Against A Sea Of Amusements? To Whom Do We Complain, And When, And In What Tone Of Voice, When Serious Discourse Dissolves Into Giggles? What Is The Antidote To A Culture's Being Drained By Laughter?

Voting, We Might Even Say, Is The Next To Last Refuge Of The Politically Impotent. The Last Refuge Is, Of Course, Giving Your Opinion To A Pollster, Who Will Get A Version Of It Through A Desiccated Question, And Then Will Submerge It In A Niagara Of Similar Opinions, And Convert Them Into--what Else?--another Piece Of News. Thus We Have Here A Great Loop Of Impotence: The News Elicits From You A Variety Of Opinions About Which You Can Do Nothing Except To Offer Them As More News, About Which You Can Do Nothing.