The problems of today were also problems in 1935

[sabotabby]

"The change noted here in the mode of exhibition—a change brought about by reproduction technology—is also noticeable in politics. The crisis of democracies can be understood as a crisis in the conditions governing the public presentation of politicians. Democracies exhibit the politician directly, in person, before elected representatives. The parliament is his public. But innovations in recording equipment now enable the speaker to be heard by an unlimited number of people while he is speaking, and to be seen by an unlimited number shortly afterward. This means that priority is given to presenting the politician before the recording equipment. Parliaments are becoming depopulated at the same time as theatres. Radio and film are changing not only the function of the professional actor but equally, the function of those who, like the politician, present themselves before the media. The direction of this change is the same for the film actor and the politician, regardless of their different tasks. It tends toward the exhibition of controllable, transferable skills under certain social conditions, just as sports first called for such exhibition under certain natural conditions. This results in a new form of selection—selection before an apparatus—from which the champion, the star, and the dictator emerge as victors." — Walter Benjamin

See also.