The modem has done much the same thing. It has supplied millions with a weapon that allows them to fire instantaneous opinions through the air like tracer bullets, and thus to engage in daily cultural warfare on a scale never seen before in history. You can argue this as a wondrous stimulation and expansion of democracy. But the computer modem revolutionizes controversy.
Every man is a king.
And so the tribes of the Decided form. But with a dangerous side effect. To be Undecided means you are still looking, suspending judgment, still thinking. In a world armed with speedy modems, reason tends to yield to instinct. And all around me a tribalism of scathing certainties has grown up.