Some said it was a sign of a continued rise of Reagan and Thatcher style individualism. Cultural critic Allan Bloom deemed the Walkman “a nonstop… masturbational fantasy” in his 1987 book ‘The Closing of the American Mind.’ Neo-Luddite John Zerzan saw the Walkman as part of a modern trend that encouraged a “protective sort of withdrawal from social connections” and Thomas Lipscomb, chief of the Center for the Digital Future, equated it with the euphoric drug “soma,” from Huxley’s Brave New World, creating, as he put it, “an airtight bubble of sound” that was nothing but a “sensory depressant.” In other words it all felt ‘a bit blackmirror’ as one might say today. (A collection of quotes collected in this 1999 Reason Magazine article)… More here.

An excellent article, as you would expect from Pessimists Archive.

Categories: Music, Retro