time to suggest strategies when the threat has not even been 
acknowledged to exist. I am in the position of Louis Pasteur 
telling doctors that their greatest enemy was quite invisible, 
and quite unrecognized by them. Our conventional response to 
all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is 
the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the “content” 
of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar 
to distract the watchdog of the mind. The effect of the medium 
is made strong and intense just because it is given another 
medium as “content.” The content of a movie is a novel or a 
play or an opera. The effect of the movie form is not related to 
its program content. The “content” of writing or print is 
speech, but the reader is almost entirely unaware either of print 
or of speech.

     Arnold Toynbee is innocent of any understanding of