HDTV is a business, but it has never been run like one. In fact, the entire progress of HDTV was led by a non-traditional carrot on the stick. Of course, time and events have covered over that carrot, but it is still the driving force and needs once again to be brought out and seen for what it is: And so, what is it? It is a promise for a better life. Like many promises there are clauses, conditions, and costs associated but the power to fulfill the promise remains undiminished. HDTV offers to the world a better view of itself. It promises to elevate our spirits together and to make familiar that which is unfamiliar, and to make new understandings painless. In short, what HDTV promises as it unfolds around the world is the formation of a new world vision that takes into account everyone and everything--beauty and the beast. It is not a vision of some secret society raising a mythical cult to new heights but rather a vision to which all become familiar and participants. As the wheel allowed all of us to roll away from the cave and into great cities this addition to technology will provide a crystalline window on the best and worst of us ... and our choices for the direction humanity must take to achieve a reverence for life will be made clear. Our leaders will lead us there or they will be put aside for we, as a people, will know where we can go because it will be plain to see and easy to understand "Oh," you say, "that is not technology's role! You can't trust an inert object to rectify an impaired collective vision of the world. We are, after all, looking at it through the prism and astigmatism of our own past,all highly diversified and often polarizing. How is HDTV going to overcome the prejudice that dwells within every mind? We all have wants, agendas, local and national objectives, objects of hate and scorn that may not be or, more often are not those of our neighbors. How are we to "see" a world in which we may all align our pursuits? We demand pragmatism and not idealism." Then here it is: I am not the first of a thoughtful class to say that after this period of dislocation, disharmony, and disaffection the world will be lead back to its spiritual and secular sanity by the arts. Now, the arts, especially the inspired arts, are beginning to feel the power of this new medium. They understand that all of their message which they create, or is created within them, can be delivered with the impact intended. The message is deliverable without dilution, impairments, or distortion and the medium can be live--a key factor. For the world must be shaken at one specific time by a profound and all-embracing thought before our global sanity returns, or is, perhaps, forged for the very first time. One thing we must come to at the height of this vision is our own humanity, each and every one of us. If we fail to make this transition from monster to man then the cynics are right and nothing will right us. But if we see that what is non-human in us must be excused and sent to the periphery and if we preserve the center for the influence of a good heart beating with the people's welfare in mind, we shall triumph. "Well," you say, "far too idealistic for me, and what in heaven's name has this to do with technology and, specifically, HDTV?" Ask me that question again after you have embraced it for a year. Dale Cripps HDTV Magazine