From 1981’s My Dinner with Andre, a debate about technology, the comfort and numbness it brings, and how it subtly changes who we are:

Wally:

Last summer Debbie and I were given an electric blanket. I can tell you it is just such a marvelous advance over our old way of life. And it’s just great. But it is quite different from not having an electric blanket. And I sometimes sort of wonder, What is it doing to me? And I mean, I sort of feel that I’m not sleeping quite in the same way.

Andre:

No, you wouldn’t be.

Wally: 

And I mean, uh…my dreams are sort of different. And I feel a little bit different when I get up in the morning.

Andre: 

I wouldn’t put an electric blanket on for anything. First, I might be worried that I’d get electrocuted. No, I don’t trust technology. But I mean the main thing Wally is that I think that that kind of comfort just separates you from reality in a very direct way.

Wally: 

You mean…

Andre: 

I mean if you don’t have that electric blanket, and you’re apartment is cold, and you need to put on another blanket or go into the closet and pile up coats on top of the blanket you have, well then you know it’s cold, and that sets up a link of things. You have compassion for the person–well, is the person next to you cold? Are there other people in the world cold? What a cold night! I like the cold, my god, I never realized. I don’t want a blanket. It’s fun being cold. I can snuggle up against you even more because it’s cold–all sorts of things occur to you. Turn on that electric blanket and it’s like taking a tranquilizer, it’s like being lobotomized by watching television. I think you enter the dream world again. What does it do to us, Wally, living in an environment where something as massive as the seasons or winter or cold don’t in any way effect us? I mean, we’re animals, after all. I mean, what does that mean? I think that means that instead of living under the sun and the moon and the sky and the stars, we’re living in a fantasy world of our own making.”•