"Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world"
About this Quote
Clive James lands the punch where the hand-wringing lives: not in the TV set, but in the viewer. The line skewers a familiar posture - cultural alarm dressed up as moral concern. If you’re convinced television is “doing something” to society, James implies, you may be outsourcing your dread of modern life to a convenient scapegoat: the glowing box that’s easy to blame, easier to unplug, impossible to argue back.
The intent is less to defend television than to puncture a certain kind of intellectual vanity. Complaints about TV often masquerade as critique while functioning as self-soothing. They let the critic stand outside the mess, above the crowd, insisting corruption flows one-way: from mass culture into passive minds. James flips that. Television doesn’t create the world’s vulgarity, confusion, or cruelty; it reflects and amplifies what’s already there, which is precisely why it unsettles people who prefer the fantasy of a manageable, curated reality.
The subtext is also autobiographical in the best way. James made a career out of taking popular culture seriously without taking himself too seriously - reviewing, watching, noticing the craft and the nonsense. He understood TV as a medium of appetite: it caters, it panders, it occasionally surprises, because it’s built to chase attention. Panicking about that can be a way to avoid admitting the deeper fear: that the public’s tastes are real, that democracy is noisy, that the culture isn’t waiting for permission from its betters.
It’s a provocation with a dare inside it: if the world frightens you, don’t pretend it’s the screen’s fault.
The intent is less to defend television than to puncture a certain kind of intellectual vanity. Complaints about TV often masquerade as critique while functioning as self-soothing. They let the critic stand outside the mess, above the crowd, insisting corruption flows one-way: from mass culture into passive minds. James flips that. Television doesn’t create the world’s vulgarity, confusion, or cruelty; it reflects and amplifies what’s already there, which is precisely why it unsettles people who prefer the fantasy of a manageable, curated reality.
The subtext is also autobiographical in the best way. James made a career out of taking popular culture seriously without taking himself too seriously - reviewing, watching, noticing the craft and the nonsense. He understood TV as a medium of appetite: it caters, it panders, it occasionally surprises, because it’s built to chase attention. Panicking about that can be a way to avoid admitting the deeper fear: that the public’s tastes are real, that democracy is noisy, that the culture isn’t waiting for permission from its betters.
It’s a provocation with a dare inside it: if the world frightens you, don’t pretend it’s the screen’s fault.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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