Demanding more to teach us we’re smart again

I think one of the insidious lessons about TV is the meta-lesson that you’re dumb. This is all you can do. This is easy, and you’re the sort of person who really just wants to sit in a chair and have it easy. When in fact there are parts of us…that are a lot more ambitious than that. And what we need, I think—and I’m not saying I’m the person to do it…is serious engaged art, that can teach again that we’re smart.

David Foster Wallace to David Lipsky. From Smarter than You Think, a review of Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky. By Wyatt Mason in NYRB.

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