Postman: the real danger of TV

...television is at its most trivial and, therefore, most dangerous when its aspirations are high, when it presents itself as a carrier of important cultural conversations.  The irony here is that this is what intellectuals and critics are constantly urging television to do.  The trouble with such people is that they do not take television seriously enough.  For, like the printing press, television is nothing less than a philosophy of rhetoric. (p16-17)