Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work.
The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The press has a dual role of disseminating culture but may also diminish our ability to focus and engage deeply.
Karl Kraus critiques the role of the press in society by highlighting its paradoxical function. While the press is tasked with promoting culture and providing knowledge, its methods can often lead to a reduction in people's attention spans, making it harder for them to fully appreciate and engage with the content being presented. This tension calls into question the balance between information dissemination and the quality of engagement with that information.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture discussing media literacy, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of critical thinking.
More from Karl Kraus
All quotes βWar: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.
Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match.
Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.
Sexuality poorly repressed unsettles some families; well repressed, it unsettles the whole world.
My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious.
Similar quotes
A romantic or classical view of the French approach would have been to say, 'It's a French company; let no one attack it. Let's block any merger. But the reality is Alcatel-Lucent is not a French company; it's a global company. Its main markets are China and the U.S. Its ownership is foreign; most of its managers aren't French.
I do not believe that God has created us under this dire necessity to toil, like beasts, to sustain life. I believe it is his will that we should hold absolute mastery over time, so as to devote it mainly to intellectual and moral improvement, domestic enjoyment, and social intercourse.
The enemy resembles us. Therefore, he needs to be approached not as an assembly of 'targets' to be destroyed one by one; but as a living, intelligent entity capable of acting and reacting.
After the leaves have fallen, we return To a plain sense of things. It is as if We had come to an end of the imagination, Inanimate in an inert savoir.
We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.
The ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us