Rome of the West

"There is relatively little difference between the anesthetized patient on the operating table and the aesthetically unaware television or film viewer.  Both persons can do very little about what is happening to them.  All they can do is to trust us, to trust our skills, our good judgement, and above all, our good intentions. Obviously, the surgeon who cuts into human beings with his scalpel, and we, who cut into human beings with highly charged, keenly calculated aesthetic energy, have an equally grave responsibility toward them.  That is why [this theory of aesthetics] stresses the close relationship between aesthetics and ethics, between ethical skill and moral purpose.

"For a mass-communicator, who daily influences millions of unsuspecting people, acceptance of such responsibility is a major job prerequisite.  Skill alone is not enough.  First and foremost, he must bring to his job a genuine concern for his fellow human beings.  He must want to make his fellowmen more aware of themselves and their surroundings.  He must love them."

— Herbert Zettl (1973)