Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 224.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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        Date: 2025-11-19 06:12:56+00:00
        From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
        Subject: Humanist

Musing about Humanist, a resemblance struck me. Let me explain.

Don Dilillo, in The Names, has this to say about one of his characters:

“Most of his anger came from TV. All that violence, crime, political
cowardice, government deception, all that appeasement, that official
faintheartedness. It rankled, it curled him into a furious ball, a fetus
of pure rage. The six o’clock news, the seven o’clock news, the eleven
o’clock news. He sat there collecting it, doubled up with his tapioca
pudding. The TV set was a rage-making machine, working at him all the
time, giving him direction and scope, enlarging him in a sense, filling
him with a world rage, a great stalking soreness and rancor.”

I thought of the radio, of the news I get from it, sometimes more than
once per day. As the infoglut (remember that word?) threatens to engulf
us, with effects like those on Delillo's poor character, Humanist is
like the radio news (at least like Radio 4 here in the UK), thankfully
filtered, much not said, and nothing shown in bright, sharp colour.

Comments?

Yours,
WM

--
Willard McCarty,
Professor emeritus, King's College London;
Editor, Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts,
   Sciences and Humanities (Berghahn); Humanist
www.mccarty.org.uk


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