The self-congratulatory popular account insists that Dr. King called on the nation to fully accept its own creed, and the walls came a-tumbling down. This conventional narrative is soothing, moving, and politically acceptable, and has only the disadvantage of bearing no resemblance to what actually happened.

If we allow our self-congratulatory adoration of technology to distract us from our own contact with each other then somehow the original agenda has been lost.