The American press exists for one purpose only, and that is to convince Americans that they are living in the greatest and most envied country in the history of the world. The Press tells the American people how awful every other country is and how wonderful the United States is and how evil communism is and how happy they should be to have freedom to buy seven different sorts of detergent.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the role of the American press in shaping public perception of the United States as superior.
Gore Vidal's quote highlights the notion that the American press serves a specific purpose of promoting a patriotic narrative that emphasizes the United States as the best country in history while disparaging other nations. Through selective emphasis on nationalism and consumerism, the media influences citizens to feel fortunate for their freedoms, thus perpetuating a specific worldview that aligns with American exceptionalism and capitalism.
In practice
In a discussion about the responsibilities of journalism during a national holiday celebration.
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
And then what?" said her daemon sleepily. "Build what?" "The Republic of Heaven," said Lyra.
..where effective competition can be created, it is a better way of guiding individual efforts than any other... regards competition as superior not only because it is in most circumstances the most efficient method known but even more because it is the only method by which our activities can be adjusted to each other without coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority.
In our sad condition our only consolation is the expectancy of another life. Here below all is incomprehensible.
The truth is that the whole life of the worker is simply a continuous and dismaying succession of terms of serfdom - voluntary from the juridical point of view but compulsory in the economic sense - broken up by momentarily brief interludes of freedom accompanied by starvation; in other words, it is real slavery.
Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically.
It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us.
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