News Is the New Religion
Philosopher Alain de Botton Wants News Junkies to Consider What Their Fix Is Doing to Them
We’re obsessed with the news. Most of us check the headlines on our mobile devices up to eight times a day. But at a Zócalo/Getty Center event, philosopher Alain de Botton, author of The News: A User’s Manual, asked us to consider why: “What on earth are we looking for?”
De Botton, who was speaking to a full house at the Getty, with additional people watching a simulcast in an overflow room, thinks news has replaced religion as our authority on social and political reality. It’s the place we go to …
