your government Nose­counting, a cherished part of the eighteenth­century fragmentation proc­ ess, has rapidly become a cumber­ some and ineffectual form of social assessment in an environment of in­ stant electric speeds. The public, in the sense of a great consensus of separate and distinct viewpoints, is finished. To­ day, the mass audience (the successor to the "public") can be used as a cre­ ative, participating force. It is, instead, merely given packages of passive en­ tertainment. Politics offers yesterday's answers to today's questions. A new form of "politics" is emerging, and in ways we haven't yet noticed. The living room has become a voting booth. Participation via television in Freedom Marches, in war, revolution, pollution, and other events is changing everything. 22