"Television certainly worked a revolution. But does anyone still maintain that the boob-tube has improved the minds of the young? Certainly, television opened the way for an even fuller Information Revolution. The apologists for television used to tell us that their darling has moulded the minds of 'the best informed generation in the history of America.' Also, it has moulded the minds of the most ignorant generation in America . . .."
-- Russell Kirk, 1983, here
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Somewhere, you wrote about the mass media, including the computer industry, conspiring to pervert our need for community. That the dream of having all this information at our fingertips to make us godlike is really doing the opposite and making us forget our humanity. Could you elaborate on that?
"It's not really that they're conspiring to, but they might as well be. If you sit down in front of the television with 700 channels, there's probably something on those channels that's going to interest you. It's a very good way to get stupid very quickly."
There's nothing you get from television? The information is just a delusion?
"I absolutely think so. If there's any information, it's purely accidental. Furthermore, I don't think there is any information to be gotten from television. I think it's an illusion. It's an interesting narcotic."
Even documentaries or historical programs?
"No, it's television."
What about the Internet and the promise of all this information becoming available?
"I don't know anything about it, but I'm sure it's worse."
-- David Mamet, interviewed, 1997, here
