quote · Legacy record
Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will get a version of it through a desiccated question, and then will submerge it in a Niagara of similar opinions, and convert them into--what else?--another piece of news. Thus we have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing.
Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will get a version of it through a desiccated question, and then will submerge it in a Niagara of similar opinions, and convert them into--what else?--another piece of news. Thus we have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing.
Approximate author period: c. 1967 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Neil Postman
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
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- Approximate author period: c. 1967 AD · modern
Approximate period for the recorded attribution to Neil Postman, based on documented lifetime 1931 to 2003. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q436131 (checked 2026-10-08). This is not a quotation composition date or independent authentication of its attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q436131 (accessed 2026-10-08).
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 355979; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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