We are all of us kings now surrounded by devices whose only purpose is to prevent us from thinking about ourselves
Sometimes you read things that explain eloquently something you've felt but not been able to articulate. For example, this from Sam Kahn:
There was a point when the middle class... was more culturally aspirational. The heyday of this probably was Mortimer Adler’s great books program and the ubiquity of Encyclopedias Britannica and Great Books boxsets in middle class homes. It’s still discernible in, say, old Woody Allen movies where a major part of Allen’s neuroses is that he’s not measuring up to what he takes to be a European cosmopolitan ideal.
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