Saturday, January 22, 2011

Heroism


"Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now... they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late."

-Edward R. Murrow
October 23rd, 1958

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