Sign in with Facebook
“To live for the moment is the prevailing passion—to live for yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity. We are fast losing the sense of historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generations originating in the past and stretching into the future.”
― The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations
― The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations
“When the images of power overshadow the reality, those without power find themselves fighting phantoms.”
― The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations
― The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations
“Meritocratic elites find it difficult to imagine a community, even a community of the intellect, that reaches into both the past and the future and is constituted by an awareness of intergenerational obligation. The "zones" and "networks" admired by Reich bear little resemblance to communities in any traditional sense of the term. Populated by transients, they lack the continuity that derives from a sense of place and from standards of conduct self-consciously cultivated and handed down from generation to generation. The "community" of the best and brightest is a community of contemporaries, in the double sense that its members think of themselves as agelessly youthful and that the mark of this youthfulness is precisely their ability to stay on top of the latest trends.”
― The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
― The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
“The same benefits misleadingly associated with religion — security, spiritual comfort, dogmatic relief from doubt — are thought to flow from a therapeutic politics of identity. In effect, identity politics has come to serve as a substitute for religion — or at least for the feeling of self-righteousness that is so commonly confused with religion.
These developments shed further light on the decline of democratic debate. ‘Diversity’ — a slogan that looks attractive on the face of it — has come to mean the opposite of what it appears to mean. In practice, diversity turns out to legitimize a new dogmatism, in which rival minorities take shelter behind a set of beliefs impervious to rational discussion.”
― The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
These developments shed further light on the decline of democratic debate. ‘Diversity’ — a slogan that looks attractive on the face of it — has come to mean the opposite of what it appears to mean. In practice, diversity turns out to legitimize a new dogmatism, in which rival minorities take shelter behind a set of beliefs impervious to rational discussion.”
― The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
“Therapy labels as sickness what might otherwise be judged as weak or willful actions; it thus equips the patient to fight (or resign himself to) the disease, instead of irrationally finding fault with himself. Inappropriately extended beyond the consulting room, however, therapeutic morality encourages a permanent suspension of the moral sense. There is a close connection, in turn, between the erosion of moral responsibility and the waning of the capacity for self-help—in the categories used by John R. Seeley, between the elimination of culpability and the elimination of competence. "What says 'you are not guilty' says also 'you cannot help yourself.' " Therapy legitimates deviance as sickness, but it simultaneously pronounces the patient unfit to manage his own life and delivers him into the hands of a specialist.”
― The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations
― The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations
c’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at c’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
661 books
|
212 friends
4,943 books
|
799 friends
6 books
|
502 friends
148 books
|
76 friends
1 book
|
489 friends
50 books
|
489 friends
6 books
|
69 friends
41 books
|
225 friends
More friends…
Polls voted on by c
Lists liked by c
