Todd Gitlin
Todd Gitlin
Todd Gitlinis an American sociologist, political writer, novelist, and cultural commentator. He has written widely on the mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSociologist
CountryUnited States of America
attention camera changing constantly deficit edits flying national thick
I think we have a national attention deficit disorder, ... Because we're so itchy. We're changing the channel, the camera is constantly moving, the edits are flying thick and fast.
american-sociologist book case everybody focused government governs ought power states united
My book is focused on the power of the American state, not least because the government of the United States governs so much that the case could be made that everybody around the world ought to have a vote in determining some of its policies.
applaud center create defeat desire far goal posture power primary sort symbolic today turn until
I think there's a desire for results, a hard-bitten realism. The primary goal is not some sort of symbolic display, or some sort of posture or attitude, but results. If that's what it means, then I applaud the turn to practicality. Today the far right is in charge, and I don't think you can create the possibility of broad-based radicalism until you defeat the far right. Put the center in power and then you have the possibility--or the luxury--of radicalism.
real believe attachment
There is a fuzzy but real distinction that can and I believe should be made, between patriotism, which is attachment to a way of life, and nationalism, which is the insistence that your way of life deserves to rule over other ways of life.
satisfaction entertainment kind
Americas are, for a variety of reasons, the most adept at producing the kind of entertainment that delivers easy satisfactions.
party third-parties particular
All I will say is that there are particular features of the American constitutional system that renders a third party futile - at best.
mark century demographics
A century of convulsive change leaves huge demographic gouge marks.
thinking trying limits
I am a realist as well as an idealist, and I think that it is incumbent upon those of us in opposition to try to work within what are always arduous circumstances to stretch the limits of the possible.
able united-states process
I am concerned about how to reverse the process by which a fundamentalist right and a corporate elite were able to seize power in the United States.
party possibility states
Right now, we have no possibility of politics because we have a one-party state.
strong america may
Some fine day, Democrats may figure out how to get on the right side of the value divide - how to define America as a place of the common good and not a playground of the strong.
desire genius machines
The genius of the economic machine is in its ability to convert these indulgences into profitability. It converts desire into attention, a grip on our eyeballs and eardrums, which in turn can be marketed to advertisers.
patriotism want versions
Some versions of patriotism come close to the tribal, which we all want to surpass, and some don't.
wise names patriotism
The mobilisation which Bush has been able to perform since 11 September 2001 has to be fought - at least by Americans - in the name of a wise, honourable and democratic patriotism.