George W. S. Trow

The idea of choice is easily debased if one forgets that the aim is to have chosen successfully, not to be endlessly choosing.

George W. S. Trow (September 28, 1943 – November 24, 2006) was an American essayist, novelist, playwright, and media critic.

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Within the Context of No Context (1980)

• Wonder was the grace of the country.

• Celebrities have an intimate life and a life in the grid of two hundred million. For them, there is no distance between the two grids of American life. Of all Americans, only they are complete.

• The work of television is to establish false contexts and to chronicle the unraveling of existing contexts; finally, to establish the context of no-context and to chronicle it.

• Soon it will be achieved. The lie of television has been that there are contexts to which television will grant an access. Since lies last, usually, no more than one generation, television will re-form around the idea that television itself is a context to which television will grant an access.

• The idea of choice is easily debased if one forgets that the aim is to have chosen successfully, not to be endlessly choosing.