I think he would have embraced certain aspects of the internet, because it has the ability to provide interaction with other people, and even in some ways allows people to explore parts of their personality that wouldn't normally be as easy to explore in daily life. (Just look at Big Blocker, do you think that guy saunters around the office on a daily basis calling people by group names and extolling the virtues of a young Jane Seymour?) He'd also hate the fuck out of the way people use the internet as an escape from actual life that is 100x more isolationist than television ever was during his time.
Thoughtful post, maybe best of the year. Made me listen to JL's Working Class Hero, from the same time and expressing his own similar observations, but John's words are too angry and personal to really compare the two.
I read Watt's book "The wisdom of insecurity" years ago and continue to recommend it to people. To me, he's one of the best modern USA philosophers.
But in all seriousness I noticed this when I was playing GTA 4 a couple of years ago. There I was playing in a very detailed virtual NYC environment pouring over 60hrs into it. But then I started to ask myself why I'm wasting time exploring the game when I can be outside in the real NYC doing real things (outside of killing). It was sort of a wake up call to get out and live a little.
The only thing I watch on TV is sports. I'm blessed to live in a place that has so much to do and see outdoors that it'd be a waste to not experience as much of it as I can.
He pretty much called our culture a bunch of mindless fucks staring at a TV. Everything we do is controlled, manufactured put on a screen for us to follow. We don't formulate our own opinions. We are puppets. Well at least that's what I got from it.
People care more about anti-social media than "real life" "hold on let me film/text/post...blah blah this" instead of actually living / enjoying the moment. No one lives for "today" it's either "Look at the pics from yesterday" or "what's cooler tomorrow?" pretty fucking disgusting.
WORD I need to do a better job of living by this. btw, I got slammed with work this week, and missed some REAL waves down in south FL (about 4hrs away) but go look. Looks like winter time country, no joke
