If no one remembers Ellison's works in 30 years, there's still one thing of his that will live on forever. - His fantastic rants.

I met Harlan in 1973. He called me any a friend "hyper-thyroid Neanderthals "because we stood at 6'plus. I own every thing Harlan had in print. I also have every thing Robert Hienlien had in print.I consider both to be my mentors.

What Ellison is addressing is a broader cultural amnesia we have; we are (to quote a former president of Brown University) "so desperately contemporary" that we forget cultural memes which carry considerably more weight than the ephemeral bilge which is on everyone's tongue at the moment. This IS a frightening situation, especially to a writer, as it narrows terribly the referents and their associations which a writer can use to elicit varying emotions. (cont.)

I can remember being in high school 30 years ago, and a history teacher getting mad at us because we didn't recognize a picture of Eisenhower (we were born in '74, there were only three tv channels our entire lives, and short of a clip in a movie that might directly identify Eisenhower, I'm not exactly sure where we ever could have seen a picture associated with the name). If I didn't have this clear memory, I'd swear I knew what Eisenhower looked like by the time I was in high school. But I didn't. Now I teach high school English, and students have very little basic knowledge about anything. And there is always a tug-of-war between teaching content, and teaching skills. Everyone wants them to be able to think and write and read, yet the CONTENT (at least to me) would demonstrate why anyone, anywhere, at any time would WANT to read or write. When we devalue content for skills, I fear we are telling them that no one would ever CHOOSE to read or write. That it CAN'T be fun or interesting or intriguing. That it is in fact nerdy and boring and a pointless hoop to jump through to get a high school diploma. And if you ever dare tell them that what you are teaching them is FAMOUS, the first question they have is, "Then why haven't I ever heard about it?" I keep telling myself that it is just the modern version of my teenage self not knowing what Eisenhower looked like. But I also remember being a little ashamed that I wasn't sure what Eisenhower looked like. I don't see any shame in kids today for their own ignorance. In fact, they seem proud. (I can also remember our band teacher being upset that we had never heard of "Ticket to Ride". But again, it was a hit 9 years before we were born, was not played on our local radio stations during our lifetimes, and without an adult playing the records to us...how were we supposed to know about it? Yes, it was the Beatles. Yes, they were huge. Yes, the song was huge and played endlessly in the '60s. But we were not alive then. ...then again, every time anything like this happened in my life, I took a mental note that I didn't know it and learned about it by any means necessary as soon as possible. I don't get the sense that students nowadays take mental notes about anything, but I may be wrong.)

You did make it man. Rest easy. People will and do read your stuff daily.

Dude always has a story or principle to back his rants. That's so solid.

I feel so lucky that this writer was around during my lifetime.

Those who do not digest the past are doomed to re-eat it.

This particular rant of Harlan's reminds me of a Cicero quote I learned in my youth: "Not to know what happened before you were born is to remain forever a child."

I can see that and the loss is yours. I have met him several time and I'll always treasure those moments. While he's by no means a saint, he's a deep thinker who doesn't hide his views no matter how flawed they occasionally are and he's not above acknowledging when he's being cranky or speaking out of ignorance on some subjects. I've seen him do it and I've read his comments when he's done it. As Spock said about the expected death of a fascinating man "On that day, I shall mourn."

This man is a legend

Ellison's words, man...they have that lethal combo of mind-haunting poignancy and stomach-punching urgency.Thank God for that brief frame of MST3K at the very end of the clip, because I came this close to hanging myself.

The problem that Ellison is missing here, is that when he was young there were only a few decades of mass media to keep track of. Only 20-30 years of movies, 20-30 years of books. Modern culture has it far more difficult. Even when he made this clip in the mid-90s, we were already up to 50-60 years worth of culture. Thats simply too much to be a complete expert on. Its not rational to bring up a random movie from a random year from 50 years previous and expect any significant % of people to have encyclopedic knowledge of it right at their fingertips. Every decade piles on more material, more pop culture milestones that must be filed away. He never considered that.

I admit to not knowing who Clarence Buddington Kelland was and had to look him up. Sadly, his only work that I could be familiar with is an adaptation of his novel "Opera Hat" that was later turned by Hollywood into "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town." While it's a valid point that time is ephemeral by its nature and everything can't be remembered, I think that Harlan is more lamenting his own mortality and possibly eventual irrelevance as a writer more than criticizing youth for their ignorance.

He was right when he said that, and this is still correct, only even more so today. Nobody knows anything any more. Oh, they know the Kardashians, and they know The Bachelor, and they might know athletes and actors from the current day. But most people don't, these days, have any connection to the past. And that is horrible.

I got really sad when I saw this. I have been a writer for over 16 years and I have realized over the past few years how true this statement really is. With the continued dimensia and cultural amnesia of the current and incoming generations, writers-even freelancers like me-will cease to have any cultural currency. No one will remember me-that I can live with odd as that sounds but not remembering Harlan Ellison? That's just heartbreaking.

Sad, but true. I recently spoke to a young man who never heard of Laurel and Hardy.

I was in a bookstore in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1998. In walks this girl and her I assume boyfriend. He’s blond, a little doughy-looking, wearing a tee shirt, shorts and running shoes and toting the obligatory skateboard. She asked him, “Do you still want this one book, the one by that dude, Kierkegaard?” He replied, “Oh yeah, man, he’s like, totally rad!” I thought “Well, can’t judge a kid by his skateboard.”

Goddam, I feel the same way . It is impossible to talk to any young person about anything that happened before they were born. They seem to think that nothing before their time is worth knowing. I work in an independent bookstore and it astonishes me how little the younger folks have read, how little they know about beyond what their favorite video game is.

A lack of sense for past pop culture can be blamed on the commercial establishment that only pushes and sells what's new and that often gets pushed on the young in much the same way dope does. In a broader sense, history is just so underrated.

Ellison was the definition of tough love. Anyone who's this passionate about people's ignorance wants them to do better. He doesn't just want them to, he wills them to do better.

From the internet: Clarence Budington "Bud" Kelland (July 11, 1881 - February 18, 1964) was an American writer. Prolific and versatile, he was a prominent literary figure in his heyday, and he described himself as "the best second-rate writer in America".[1] Kelland had a long career as a writer of fiction, stretching from 1913 to 1960. He was published in many magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post and The American Magazine. A prolific writer, his output included 60 novels and some 200 short stories. His best known juvenile works were the Mark Tidd series and the Catty Atkins series, while his best known adult work was the Scattergood Baines series.[2] Other notable adult books by Kelland include Conflict (1920), Rhoda Fair (1925), Hard Money (1930), Arizona (1939), and Dangerous Angel (1953).[3] Kelland was the "literary idol" of teenager and future writer John O'Hara.[4] Today, Kelland is relatively little known. In a 1995 installment of Harlan Ellison's television commentary, Ellison reflected on Kelland's descent from fame to obscurity, lamenting it as an example of diminished cultural literacy and a decline in interest in the printed word.[5] Still, Kelland's name lives on in the dozens of motion pictures adapted from his works, [6] including Speak Easily (1932) starring Buster Keaton. Opera Hat, a Kelland serial from The American Magazine, was the basis for the film Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) starring Gary Cooper.[7] Opera Hat later was turned into the short-lived television series Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1969-70), and the movie Mr. Deeds (2002). One of Kelland's best-known characters was featured in the Scattergood Baines series of six Hollywood films from 1941 to 1943, starring Guy Kibbee as Baines. The Baines character was a benevolent but often misunderstood figure trying to help the people in his small town. The series began with Scattergood Baines (1941) and ended with Cinderella Swings It (1943).

I'll always remember your work Harlan, Jefty is 5 is a story of yours that haunts me still.

Isak Dinisen, Joseph Conrad, Victor Hugo, Herman Melville, Edgar Allen Poe, O'Henry ... and Harlan Ellison. My personal and crowded Mt Rushmore of Writers.

I know I'm too late with this, but that Mt. Everest with the arches idea was used in at least two different horror comic books back in the '50s. In an issue of Harvey's Witches Tales, an old frozen over hot dog stand is ''Up There,'' leaving the climber a basket case. In one of the Atlas titles, the climber finds a ski resort at the pinnacle.

One generation's common knowledge is quite different from another. Cross a large body of water and the SAME generation's common knowledge will change utterly. Who is Natsume Soseki? No American has a clue. Who is Lassie? No Japanese has a clue. These are just the normal limitations of human attention.

5 wives.. I can imagine this man was a handful to deal with on a daily basis. but he has written some fantastic novels and stories

Harlan, here's the way of man, in words of one wiser. "As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more." Psalm 103:15,16

Lassie Come Home was the first novel I read by myself--I was age 5

Hate! Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for young people who don't get my references and/or share my taste movies and literature at this micro-instant. For you. Hate! Hate!

I'm 56 and most people my age don't know who Colman was. I've always been interested in movies of the, say, 1960's & earlier, including silents. or, even sadder, who Ellison, my favorite writer, was.

This happens in all the arts. Never happens in banking...

@MultiSmartass1 yeah, and never mind Mark Twain and Lassie come home. I meet a girl who's never heard of James Stewart. James Stewart, that's yesterday, fercrissakes! So I'm in a movie rental store - I mean, where else can you be sure of finding appreciation for the story right? So I tell one of the guys on staff about this girl. He says, "Who's James Stewart?" Mark Twain, Chaucer, Phillip Marlowe, Pirandello? Forget it!

Totally agree with Harlan Ellison and although he was born in the same year as my parents we lived in an era of a rotary knob TV with 3 Channels and a fuzzy few more with a UHF in which you needed a bigger outside antennae not just the rabbit ears that came with your TV . Then the new Urban reality came that I call saturation city . Cable ,the net, XBox games etc. Undivided attention still being divided like this medium I am writing too. Years ago in the 90s I met a guy Who worked for the Comedy Channel and we became acquaintances. I asked him ‘ Is it just me getting old or are there too many comedians now ? “. He looked at me and said , ‘Do not say I said this but “ Yes!” .

@crazyrabbits Speilberg said it best. "Younger people come up to me and call themselves film buffs yet their interests seem to never go back further than Jaws or Star Wars. It's quite sad." Not saying that's the case with you but it's a fairly accurate statement.

What Harlan's saying --- it's the same with music. People don't know anything.

Love this guy so much.

It's very unwise to believe that everyone else is gonna get your references or allusions to things, especially if they are teenagers. People have different tastes and interests than your own. They also have different life paths and environments. Maybe you are lucky and were brought up in a well-read household. Most other people did not have that foundation as a kid and teenager. I like Harlan Ellison, overall, but he can be kind of offbase with some things, it seems to me, in these old video commentaries and interviews. Harlan seems to realize that he's already outdated and on the way out as a creator, in this video. The thing is, so is everyone and everything, for the most part, with time. A hundred years from now, it's quite possible that no one will give a damn about reading books by current mega-authors like Stephen King or JK Rowling. Those two could easily disappear with time and a few generations. Just about everything is fleeting and will be forgotten.

It is rather like an article I read on “No More Allusions.” It’s no longer possible to use a great line like “There is a tide in the affairs of men / Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” Used in even an audience of mixed age now, it’s likely to be ineffective at best. On the other hand, what the aging Mr. Ellison is experiencing here (and which has to be particularly difficult for him) is the great cruelty of aging. I do not refer to physical debility, nor particularly to dementia, but from having the world we grew into as adults ripped from us, the world where we came into our own, with our eyes clear, abilities intact, and passions at the full. No, Mr. Ellison, there will be no more confrontations with Frank Sinatra- he’s gone, and the time has gone. It couldn’t happen now because the universe has had the bad grace to shift just that much. Repent, harlequin, indeed…..

(cont.) The opposing side of that coin is that not EVERYONE forgets, not even among the young. I have run into a fair number of young people who are actually very knowledgeable about many of our cultural figures of the past; sometimes silent film stars (Buster Keaton, Louise Brooks, Clara Bow, etc.), or writers such as Lovecraft, Howard, Smith... or even Seabury Quinn... and that's not even touching on the resurgence of interest in the original Gothic writers... (cont')

Art:"The use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others." Culture: "The shared knowledge and schemes created by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realities around them." Film and Television are forms of art and culture. Just because you don't enjoy something, doesn't mean it's anti-intellectual. If anything, you're against people having independent thought.

Darn these kids these days! Get off my lawn! But really, no, I'm 40 right now and I have not seen Lost Horizon, but I have at least HEARD of it. I COULD Google it, something Harlan most likely never did about anything given how anti-Wikipedia he was, but I really, truly don't care. I am a multiverse variant of this man. Born later, different life circumstances, more optimistic and less of a complaining grognard about writing... but I write. And damn it, Harlan has always been an inspiration.

Society works in cycles - the same stories and works are just adapted for a new generation, at the highest prices (to quote one of Ellison's phrases). It's not that man's fault that he didn't know what Lost Horizon was - I'm in my 20's, pride myself on being a film buff, and I didn't know what it was.

What Harlan is really complaining about here is the fragmenting of culture that was only starting to accelerate when this was recorded in the early mid nineties. Consider that culture in the forties and fifties when Ellison was in his formative period was much more monolithic. TV was a new thing and there were only three networks broadcasting, you had a handful of movie studios and only about 50K books published (sounds like a lot until you realize there are about 500k to a million published in 2023). Everyone watched, read or listened to broadly the same things and formal education was focused on a narrow canon of important works that had managed to remain relevant across generations- Dickens, Shakespeare, Twain etc. All of this changed as technology made media production less expensive and opened up options. In the 80s you had the rise of cable. Global trade allowed more importation of foreign media in English or translation. Publication exploded and genre segregation allowed more targeted marketing to specific kinds of readers. All of this fractured the audience. 106 million people watched the finale of M*A*S*H in 1983 (60% of the population). 10 years later only 90 million (40% of the population) watched the last episode of Cheers. This has accelerated as the creative fields have become more diversified speaking to every division of gender, race and sexual orientation. What Ellison is ranting against is the fact that it was impossible by the latter half of his career for any writer to speak to the majority of readers. The irony is that his work (and that of writers he professed to admire like Octavia Butler and Chip Delaney) was a major factor in breaking down the sorts of cultural constructs that imposed the very kind of mono-culture he would have seemed to have preferred.

@ThePropKing: The full talk, the full conversation that Harlan has with the camera, the full clip/video would have been nice!

Fast forward to 2019 and no one at my school knows what twin peaks is.

The whole point of considering everything as stupid is to discourage considering every thought a profundity and comments like yours as true. In this way, the truly exceptional thoughts shine all the brighter.

Well, you know what Chaucer said when he quoted the Greek philosopher Hippocrates " (in Latin as Greek hadn't been re-discovered yet): "Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile" or in Chaucer's words: "The lyfe so short, the crafte so long to lerne." "The Parliment of Foules

I think Ellison is right on the money, it's painfully obvious that people and our cultures are losing their collective memories and experiences, infact that would make a great book or film if it were to be as unsentimental as possible and brutually honest because it would really worry people the fact that this well of all our collected lives and dreams is running drier and drier by the neglect of each generation

@MultiSmartass1 I don't know why you said 'however', since I agree wholeheartedly with you. At least to recognize their names. I made a major mistake - I meant to say Christopher Marlowe, not Phillip. LOL. I remember mentally squinting at it after I wrote it, but I missed it. I meant the guy who wrote Tamburlaine the Great (Parts I and II, haha); the one some class conscious scholars think wrote Shakespeare, and the guy Colin Firth thought WAS Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love - remember?

Well, who knows? He might be best remembered for writing some of the greatest imaginative literature of the 20th century, or (irony of ironies) a script for a TV space opera he mostly despised. Ellison worried too much about posterity, not understanding that every moment he spent fretting over whether people would remember him for his accomplishments after he was dead would be one less moment he could enjoy in the only life he would ever have. He should’ve re-read “Ozymandias,” the famous poem about the futility of all ambition, and made his peace with the fact that it doesn’t much matter if we’re remembered or not - either way, you’re still dead.

@Terry5135 Hahaha! You may have a point and I agree in general. However, I think its healthier for people to know who Chaucer and Pirandello were. And i guess Phillip Marlowe as well although I think you meant to include Raymond Chandler, the writer who created Marlowe, in there as well. If they dont know who Jimmy Stewart was, its sad but not a tragedy.

I'm just saying, you could have worded the joke a little better. The intended double meaning was taking "I knew who Geoffrey Chaucer was" out of context to make it sound as if I claimed to have met him. The problem is that I didn't say "I knew him," I said, "I knew who he was," so the intended double meaning is lost. Just trying to be constructive.

Ah, a verbose and diplomatic message. The internet could use more of these.

The old artwork is thrown away and forgotten after only 5 to 10 years. You have to be in the know of the current fade but that is impossible if the culture changes every two seconds. Art isn't cherished anymore and hence, they've made art cheap as a something you could buy at a McDonald's. Who wants to be an artist if your work is thrown away and replaced with something cheaper and less well made.

I have no mouth is one of the most hardcore books I've ever read, even more hardcore than Who Goes There. Nobody will forget Harlan Ellison, and the second they water down I have no mouth I will take to the streets!

@mwells219 I had to read Chaucer in school and I confess I didnt like it. Now, Iam glad I read The Canterbury tales even if I didnt like it.

Haha! Interesting verbiage you used-"we are surendering our minds" to that which "promise us freedom from our repression." I like what you say here too. Yes, the most dangerus minds are the least intelligent for they do not have eyes to see nor ears to hear but proceed the depth of their own well-stocked store of ignorance. As they said in Star Wars-A New Hope. "Who is more foolish-the fool or the fool who follows him?"

I remember seeing a dumbed down picture book of "Old Yeller" that completely dropped the ending of the boy having to shoot his beloved dog! What was the point of that?

Will they remember Kadak, Ellison? Ellison, will they remember Kadak? If they don't remember Ellison's stories in 2084, they'll remember his big glasses and warm heart.

@Terry5135 Dont worry. I wasnt disagreeing with you overall just noting that knowing who Chaucer is is more worthwhile than knowing who Jimmy Stewart. As for the Marlowe faux pas, at least its fairly literate. Better to say Phillip Marlowe than some character from TWILIGHT or something.LOL.

Oh HE you *will* be remembered ... for writing TheCity on the Edge of Forver and *hating* for that being rewritten.

This is the thing that haunts me when I try to sleep at night.

Not really. There's a lovely invention that that's very useful for learning about people who are no longer living. It's called a book.

Just added Lost Horizon on Netflix.

I dont want you to go that far-keep your hand. You may have a point about the cultursl pendulum-it may swing back in the other direction but it may be a while. The whole commercialization/corproatization of America and Americans has done so much damage that it will be very hard to undo.

Secondly, foreign students come to the US ( if they can get in past the security restrictions put in place after 9-11) to largely attend Grad schools. They certainly dont come as a children specifically to attend US public schools which are atrocious and backwards academically compared to schools in other countries. Finally, the point I made is that US is inherently bankrupt in terms of intellectual culture because of its nascent mercantile and capitalist nature which always has and will exist.

(cont.) So, while it IS a disturbing trend (in earlier periods, such memes were common property for the majority of a society, rather than a select few), there IS some ray of hope. When it comes to Ellison's survival.... my own opinion is that not everything will survive, but his best certainly will... and frankly, he has had one hell of a lot of fine material which I think will continue to resonate with people of all ages, whether or not they catch all the cultural references....

I was in Costco today and the lady in front of me was buying the latest dreck by James Patterson. So disheartening.

You say potato, and I say "screw potatoes." You want to call it ignorance, I see it as stupidity. But just because the world is stupid doesn't mean there's no reason to live. Case in point: you're still alive.

I wonder if Ellison ever read anything by Richard Watson Gilder?

The FUTURE?

Keep ranting and you'll make it, dude. That's what youtube is for.

I used to write film reviews but that's another story...

after viewing several open casket vids (dont judge me), i think this is may be an emerging trend to immortalize loved ones. is it sick, or is it where we're at in 2012?

subliminal MST3K at the end

Is that your idea of a rant? Which future are you from? Brave New World? Logan's Run? Are you an Eloi?

I strongly agree. Ignorance isn't confined to youth and age doesn't guarantee wisdom. I remember mentioning the name Noah Webster to a man twice my age and he assumed that Webster was a man who exists today ("Who said I have to buy anything to be a customer?" "Noah Webster." "Oh yeah? Well, you can tell Noah Webster that he can kiss my ass!"). Senility or arrogance fueled by stupidity/ignorance? You decide.

That's just the way it is. You can't blame kids for their ignorance of the past. What kid would rather play with an old toy than a new toy? It's just basic human nature; out with the old, in with the new.

Was the MST3K crew mocking Ellison's plight at the end?

I love Harlan's 'righteous irascibility' It's probably for the best that he's gone. He would probably spontaneously combust at what passes for reality today. 😏

One thumb WAY up...

Harlan in video A: I made it here because I didn’t give a damn Harlan in video B: writers these days are bad bc they don’t give a damn WHICH IS IT??

If he’s going to mock someone for not knowing Lost Horizon and Shangri-La, he shouldn’t mock them for not knowing the movie star who played Conway (the character in the novel). He should mock them for not knowing who Conway is.

Somehow, Ellison's whole style puts me in mind of a literary Christopher Walken...

I'm amazed at Ellison's ego whenever I see him. He's a smart and talented guy, but it's not like he's Mark Twain or Fyodor Dostoyevsky or something. I agree with him, all this neverending and expanding "content" just gets bigger and bigger, and no one has condensed it down, and at some point no one can know everything there is to know about literature, and imagine how many other great stories have been lost … so, that's life.

No one markets this stuff to kids. Publishers don't want to sell parents a $2 paperback that can be had at a used book store for 50 cents. They want to sell them new books the can charge $50 for that aren't available used. They want them to buy books with a lot of color so they can charge more. They want to sell books with original characters they can market and franchise and put in movies.

You can criticize me for not getting it, but that still doesn't change the fact that your delivery of it was flawed.

A guy with a year of college who could talk and think circles around 99 percent of college graduates. Is all that college debt still worth it?

It's ok, I wasn't directing that at you, and if my point doesn't relate to yours it's because it is saying its own thing. I like what you say though. What I also want to say is that the most dangerous minds are not the least intelligent, it is the electric climate based on technology, and to it we are surrendering our minds to these things which promise us freedom from our repression, but it is more like icarus wanting to feel the warmth of the sun. Anyway! I've now run out of characters!

Actually this is the crux of Corporate Culture in the US: Singular "taste" for a mass audience or audiences. Actually if taste existed in this context, it would be a step up. The Corporate culture and pop culture is based on a lack of taste. Intellectual culutre requires high standrads and content. Therefore it is not for everyone and never has been. My dissatisfaction is not "baseless" nor my contempt "needless" but right on the money. The current culture privileges illiteracy and stupidity.

What do you mean: "Nature of the US"? that's like saying people have no choice. People have lungs, they have brains, but no one is using them to articulate themselves, and it's through a collective laziness that the Davinci Code has become literary genius, because no one expects the kids to learn it, they dont expect a good life for them, they expect the worse, so that's what they get. It doesn't take a genius to realise this, and once you have, your brain will work again, and you will be happy!

by making a video game as it turns out

Im not criticiizing a film nor writing a film review . If you were reading these posts before running off at the mouth you would clearly understand that. Apparently you dont. The point of my posts is not "self-reflection" since this video is not about me but the lack of literary and filmic and other cultural antecedents amongst the current generation. As such, it is not about my ego but the lack of cultutre as whole. As usual, you dont know what you are talking about.

Not to mention the neglect of the older generation. Old people need some self reflection on their lack of effort for diplomacy, eagerness to sacrifice the lives of the youth for pointless wars, crippling social ineptitude, bizarre xenophobia, and their irrational fear of technology.

Who the hell is Mark Chaucer? ;)

I am glad Harlan Ellison is realizing that. Posterity is an overrated concept . Ephemeral is the norm . Even Star Trek had a Shelf Life.----- that is why they rebooted it with a new cast. Ellison himself used to be deluded about this. I am going to even point out that Collies are allegedly a breed that are hardly seen in veterinarian waiting rooms anymore according to an article I read

Actually, Im critical not informative here. As for insightful that's in the eye of the beholder. Whether I like the condition of the country is ultimately irrelevent. What matters is the truth and truth is this country has never had a valid literary, artistic and intelellectual culture beyond the fringes. The main consideration of this country has always been commercial and mercantile and this permeates every aspect of this society.

Dust in the wind, Dude ;-)

Wow again one thing ellison is a head of his times