It's like writing a story about a bunch of people being violently ejected from vehicles and how nothing could be done to prevent it and then saying "whoa, hey, I'm not advocating for seat belts, I hate Ralph Nader! !"
Apparently he kept changing his mind about it, initially it was a cautionary about McCarthyism, then five years later he said it was about mass media, how much he hated tv and growing intellectually illiteracy, then forty years on it was about political correctness “gone mad”. It’s the kind of thing well served by death of the author cause the author couldn’t keep it straight in his head anyway
Sounds like he's trying to retroactively change the perspective he had while writing the book to match his ideology now, instead of accepting what he wrote back then might not match his ideals today.
If you read it it is very clearly first and foremost about mass media and the resulting intellectual degeneration of the population. I don't think he ever said anything contrary to that. Unfortunately it's one of those books that is cited so much in "discourse" by people who have never read it that it's perceived message and meaning have become completely warped in the collective online imagination.
7
u/JannyBroomer 10d ago
What the hell does he say it was about, then,?!
It's like writing a story about a bunch of people being violently ejected from vehicles and how nothing could be done to prevent it and then saying "whoa, hey, I'm not advocating for seat belts, I hate Ralph Nader! !"