The world of the distraction or diversion or perversion of humanity by technology culminates in adoration, veneration, and beatification, in the expression of properly religious sentiment. As Marx showed, alienation leads to religion. Humanity, when diverted, also becomes religious. The star system has been functioning for a long time. In the entertainment world the star becomes the idol in the primary sense, the absolute, transcendent image, a veritable Allah.
Jacques Ellul, The Technological Bluff, G. Bromiley, trans. (1990), p. 382