Jerry Mander Quotes

Jerry Irwin Mander is an American activist and author, best known for his 1978 book, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. His most recent book, The Capitalism Papers, argues against capitalism as a sustainable and viable system on which to base an economy. Wikipedia

✵ 1. May 1936

Jerry Mander: 3 quotes0 likes

Famous Jerry Mander Quotes

“Television is an experience that can be had by virtually everyone at the same time. By substituting for a greater diversity of experiences and unifying everyone with it, it aids commercial efficiency. With all people confined to the same mental and physical condition, a single advertising or political voice appropriate to the common mood can influence everyone.”

Source: Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), p. 132

“Psychiatrist R. D. Laing, among others, has said that the growing incidence of mental illness these days may be explained in part by the fact that the world we call real and which we ask people to live within and understand is itself open to question. The environment we live in is no longer connected to the mix of planetary processes which brought us all into being. It is solely the product of human mental processes. It is real, but only in the way that a theatrical play or a fun house is real. Our artificial environment is there and we can experience it, yet it has been created on purpose by other humans. It is an interpretation of reality; it no longer reveals how nature works and it cannot provide much useful information to human beings who seek to see their own lives as part of some wider natural process. We are left with no frame of reference untouched by human interpretation.”

Source: Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), p. 87

“Television encourages separation: people from community, people from each other, people from themselves, creating more buying units and discouraging organized opposition to the system. It creates a surrogate community: Itself. It becomes everyone’s intimate advisor, teacher and guide to appropriate behavior and awareness. Thereby, it becomes its own feedback system, furthering its own growth and accelerating the transformation of everything and everyone into artificial form. This enables a handful of people to obtain a unique degree of power.”

Source: Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), p. 133

Similar authors

Patch Adams photo

Patch Adams10

Physician, activist, diplomat, author None

Jack London photo

Jack London77

American author, journalist, and social activist None

Malcolm X photo

Malcolm X180

American human rights activist None

Helen Keller photo

Helen Keller156

American author and political activist None

Rosa Parks photo

Rosa Parks22

African-American civil rights activist None

Noam Chomsky photo

Noam Chomsky334

american linguist, philosopher and activist None

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

Martin Luther King, Jr.658

American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Ci… None

Brigitte Bardot photo

Brigitte Bardot35

French model, actor, singer and animal rights activist None

Muhammad Ali photo

Muhammad Ali100

African American boxer, philanthropist and activist None

Bertrand Russell photo

Bertrand Russell562

logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… None