"For reasons that make good sense, officially at least. A culture founded on brevity cannot be expected to encourage its own demise through the acts of its civil servants! Think what could happen: A total work of art, whatever its form, takes time to appreciate! But if people spend too long at an opera, the legitimate theatre or the television industry would be slighted! If they paused too long in contemplation of a painting, newspapers might not be purchased! If they dawdled over the old-style newspaper, the digest magazines, the popular recordings, the minute movies, the spectator sports—the thousand and one forms of mass recreation offered the public—each in turn would suffer from unrestrained competition!"
"It's inconceivable," Walther protested, "that entertainment interests could be strong enough to shape a culture! Surely the productive basis of Earth's economy...."
Willy snorted.
"My boy, work as such may still be important in Andromeda, but how could it possibly be so here on Earth? Generations ago, automation, the control of the atom, the harnessing of the sun's energy—all combined with many other factors to make work a negligible part of Man's existence! Thus, with four-fifths of his waking hours devoted to leisure-time pursuits, the balance of power shifted inevitably to the purveyors of mass entertainment. Great monopolies, operating under the Happy Time, Ltd. cartel, seized upon the digest trend in the old culture and made brevity the basis of the new order. The briefer you make a piece of entertainment, the more pieces you can sell the public in a given number of leisure hours! It's just good business," Willy concluded drily.
Walther was silent a moment, trying to frame this picture in his thoughts. But there were so many missing elements.
"Your artists and writers," he demanded, "all your creative people—don't they have anything to say about it?"
"Damn little. You see, the successful artist—whatever his field—is well paid by his particular monopoly. Besides, he's been trained in the new form! I doubt if Maria has ever seen the original score of an opera—let alone tried to sing an entire aria!"
Willy took a glass of wine from a tray offered by the hostess's servo-robot. He motioned to Walther to help himself, but Walther shook his head. Another question was troubling him.
"Why do the monopolies even bother with Digesters and the classics? Why not let modern artists create in the new form?"
Willy's voice grew hard.