Leo Tolstoy wrote that all happy families are alike but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Jim Harrison wrote that our wounds are far less unique than our cures. Here is David Foster Wallace:
TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests.
This quote says a lot about Wallace: He thought about television a lot, he recognized the ways in which people are good, and he didn’t just offer observations but also explanations. Most of all, he was refreshingly earnest. No hidden meaning, no cynicism, no Straussian silliness, just clarity.
Nehaveigur 