Contemporary observers saw television’s dual potential for art and cultural opiate.

Evidence

As the immersive power of the movie screen was brought into the home, some could already see that it might be a force for greatness or nothingness. “It is also almost like a giant eye on life itself,” wrote the novelist Calder Willingham, “and can easily become the vehicle for masterpieces of a magnitude and power never achieved before in the arts, given the artists to create them and the audience to support them. For this very reason, it would also become the worst cultural opiate in history, buy and corrupt all talent, and completely degrade the sensibility of the country. Everything depends on the use to which television is put.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 440

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Television’s arrival raised the question of a shift from class culture to mass culture; Contemporary entertainment produces enthrallment in abjection rather than escapist delusion. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 37

Broader Connections

• Television’s arrival raised the question of a shift from class culture to mass culture #expands (0.75)
• Contemporary entertainment produces enthrallment in abjection rather than escapist delusion. #corroborates (0.72) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 37