In the shift from direct democracy to representational democracy, the printed book became an embodiment of thought for the physically absent author; and so the popular art form of the popular book and the pamphlet re-presented ideas and contributed to the public space of political philosophies of the Enlightenment. Television, however, now brings forth this new kind of public space, and it calls into being this new world, not of the educated citizenry in a republic, but of the electropeasantry in the state of Entertainment. Recall how people stopped singing in pubs when they brought in the TV set, and you will appreciate the new passivity in which people stop voting for their representatives as TV takes over the electoral campaigns.


Thompson (1991) Play, from The American Replacement of Nature.

William Irwin Thompson Quotes

In the shift from direct democracy to representational democracy, the printed book became an embodiment of thought for the physically absent author;...

In the shift from direct democracy to representational democracy, the printed book became an embodiment of thought for the physically absent author;...