Watched a doc on netflix on WF Buckley/Gore Vidal debates on abc in 1968 last night

Post #406,974 by TB D 12/14/15 5:17:16 PM Reply	Watched a doc on netflix on WF Buckley/Gore Vidal debates on abc in 1968 last night More evidence that nothing really changes. Both men were utterly convinced that adoption of the other's ideas would be the end of the republic. The most striking thing, however, was the level of discourse - stratospheric in sophistication compared to our low brow sound bites and FUD. Buckley was fun - despite being a worrisome stick in the mud in viewpoint. Vidal somewhat less cutting but I tended to much prefer his points. And in the end...left was left and right was right and nothing much was settled although a good time was had by all.
Post #406,980 by rcareaga 12/14/15 10:01:27 PM Reply	Indeed Who among us—those of us old enough to remember—could forget that elevated debate, the civilized thrust and parry, the witty banter? “Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in the goddam face and you’ll stay plastered.” I tell you, it was like Athens under Pericles. nostalgically,
Post #407,005 by Ashton 12/16/15 2:21:29 AM Reply	Quite so, more like "God and (a) Man with Ale" than that other title Were they not both a tad squiffy?
Post #407,008 by mmoffitt 12/16/15 1:28:50 PM Reply	It was the beginning of the end. ABC’s grand experiment with Buckley and Vidal didn’t so much result in worse discussion as it resulted in more discussion, because it revealed discussion to be something greater than its content. First, their debates revealed televised discussion to be, first and foremost, a form of television, and thereby induced executives to expand the formal boundaries of news broadcasting. Second, their debates revealed televised discussion to be a media event in a very peculiar and particular sense: an event that existed more for the benefit of other media people, for journalists and commentators, than for the general public. The clashes come off as an event that entered the echo chamber of the punditocracy, that piqued the interest and won the acclaim of journalists and commentators, who themselves defined its import and impact by the very fact of their noticing. It was mass media for an insider audience, intended to create not first-order popularity but buzz. That’s its distinctive post-modernity, and its enduring claim on attention. http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/buckley-vidal-and-the-birth-of-buzz

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