In the same year, 1844, then, that men were playing 
chess and lotteries on the first American telegraph, Soren 
Kierkegaard published The Concept of Dread . The Age of 
Anxiety had begun. For with the telegraph, man had initiated 
that outering or extension of his central nervous system that is 
now approaching an extension of consciousness with satellite 
broadcasting. To put one’s nerves outside, and one’s physical 
organs inside the nervous system, or the brain, is to initiate a 
situation—if not a concept—of dread.

     Having glanced at the major trauma of the telegraph on 
conscious life, noting that it ushers in the Age of Anxiety and 
of Pervasive Dread, we can turn to some specific instances of 
this uneasiness and growing jitters. Whenever any new medium 
or human extension occurs, it creates a new myth for itself, 
usually associated with a major figure: Aretino, the Scourge of