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To: Oblomov who wrote (30487)	4/6/1999 8:39:00 AM
From: JB2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86076

The fact that there are so many channels is very material. You cannot for example keep a society constrained in ignorance and bigotry when people formerly leading provincial lives are now exposed to culture and mores of others via films, internet, literature. How do you explain the explosive growth of the bookselling business lately? The masses are getting more educated. Yes there is a phenomenon of information overload occuring---McLuhan's "medium is the message" rings true, but it is not the only bell tolling. Society is not capable of digesting change as fast as the technocrats would like ala' Gates' "change at the speed of thought" concept. For one thing, as long as the critical mass continue to choose to spend a large fraction of their lives in their cars they will be easily exploited. If you are driving a car 20,000 miles a year, that is the equivalent of 12 to 14 forty hour weeks a year in your car. That is an example of taking a so-called freedom, the right to drive yourself anywhere you like, and becoming enslaved by it, and beholden to constantly paying for it in both time and dollars. Freedom is double-edged. <Why is there not more political change being driven from the grassroots?> Because we no longer live in a folk society like the one that existed when the forefathers of this social experiment, like Ben Franklin, lived. I used to bemoan the supposed loss of privacy that seemed to be taking place as we move into this digital age. But if you look at the way things worked in our earlier folk society, there was even less privacy then---you didn't need a credit bureau, the local shopkeepers just knew who the deadbeats were, and word got around. Towns were so small, everyone knew where everyone else lived and you didn't need a bloated bureaucracy to knock on your door and tell you, for instance, that a "sexual predator" lived around the corner. There were no convenient utility companies or high tech hospitals available and therefore no need for centralized billing and tracking people. Everything's a tradeoff. There were no freeways, if you were a degenerate, disgrace, misfit, etc. it was a long walk/horseback ride to the next town and it was harder to just keep changing addresses every few months. Maybe this served to keep people in line, or maybe there were just as many social problems back then as there are now and we just have cameras up the noses of every person who performs a startling act now. The cameras have changed the political process as well. Why do you necessarily associate "grassroots politics" with liberty and justice? If the "grassroots" were the administrators of L and J then we'd still have "colored" water fountains in Alabama. The limits of your impact as a citizen are no longer adequately measured by the standards of a folk society. Your impact as a citizen in this day and age are primarily determined by your consumer choices and your own moral choices. The fact that you feel "less able to escape from the media" is a direct reflection of an unfortunate mindset that is prevalent now; the idea that we are somehow no longer responsible for our own behavior. To quote John Ralston Saul on responsibility: "Nobody is responsible in a corporate society. That's because the real citizens are corporations. Individuals only work for them and follow orders. It follows that individuals see themselves as chosen for victimization." This is a perceptual problem, not an actual one. "Escape from the media" is simple. If you include everything that transmits information and label it as "media" then I guess you could cancel all newspaper subscriptions, turn off the tv, radio, stereo and stop driving down the freeway absorbing subliminal messages from billboards. You have the freedom to lead the life of quiet desperation so common in Thoreau's time if you reject the life of loud desperation so common in our time. Misguided spearheads like Donna Rice, who wants to restrict and legislate the internet "because of the children", want to be thought police and would have you think you are incapable of choice and reason therefore someone else must take those burdens away from you. "Escape from the media" is a phrase springing from the pages of both Jerry Falwell and the politically correct left. A convergence of fear on both sides of the political spectrum is only natural when a technological revolution is underway. Don't let yourself get caught up in it. We're a well fed, neurotic, rich, and comfortable society. "Escape" is available by many means in such an atmosphere of abundance---as Auntie Mame says: "Life's a banquet and most poor slobs are starving to death!"