Donald E. Westlake Quotes


It is the logic of consumerism that undermines the values of loyalty and permanence and promotes a different set of values that is destructive of family life. Christopher Lasch Family 149
In an individualistic culture, the narcissist is God's gift to the world. In a collectivist society, the narcissist is God's gift to the collective. Christopher Lasch Society 110
Knowledge is what we get when an observer, preferably a scientifically trained observer, provides us with a copy of reality that we can all recognize. Christopher Lasch Knowledge 90
Most of these alternative arrangements, so-called, arise out of the ruins of marriages, not as an improvement of old fashioned marriage. Christopher Lasch Marriage 82
The reporting of news has to be understood as propaganda for commodities, and events by images. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 81
It is no longer an unwritten law of American capitalism that industry will attempt to maintain wages at a level that allows a single wage to support a family. Christopher Lasch Family 79
Environmentalism opposes reckless innovation and makes conservation the central order of business. Christopher Lasch business 78
Propaganda in the ordinary sense of the term plays a less important part in a consumer society, where people greet all official pronouncements with suspicion. Christopher Lasch Society 78
The left dismisses talk about the collapse of family life and talks instead about the emergence of the growing new diversity of family types. Christopher Lasch Family 78
The conservative revival cannot be dismissed. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 77
Every age develops its own peculiar forms of pathology, which express in exaggerated form its underlying character structure. Christopher Lasch Age 77
The proper reply to right wing religiosity is not to insist that politics and religion don't mix. This is the stock response of the left. Christopher Lasch Politics 76
Liberals subscribe to the new flexible, pluralistic definition of the family; their defense of families carries no conviction. Christopher Lasch Family 76
When liberals finally grasped the strength of popular feeling about the family, they cried to appropriate the rhetoric and symbolism of family values for their own purposes. Christopher Lasch Family 73
Most women are pragmatists who have allowed extremists on the left and right to manipulate the family issue for their own purposes. Christopher Lasch Family 71
A society that has made nostalgia a marketable commodity on the cultural exchange quickly repudiates the suggestion that life in the past was in any important way better than life today. Christopher Lasch Society 69
It is a tribute to the peculiar horror of contemporary life that it makes the worst features of earlier times -- the stupefaction of the masses, the obsessed and driven lives of the bourgeoisie -- seem attractive by comparison. Christopher Lasch Modern 69
Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics. Christopher Lasch Politics 68
The family wage has been eroded by the same developments that have promoted consumerism as a way of life. Christopher Lasch Family 66
Instead of taking environmentalism away from the left, conservatives condemn it as a counsel of doom. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 66
Because politics rests on an irreducible measure of coercion, it can never become a perfect realm of perfect love and justice. Christopher Lasch Politics 64
The question of the family now divides our society so deeply that the opposing sides cannot even agree on a definition of the institution they are arguing about. Christopher Lasch Society 63
We are all revolutionaries now, addicts of change. Christopher Lasch Change 60
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success. Christopher Lasch Success 59
The job of the press is to encourage debate, not to supply the public with information. Christopher Lasch Media 57
Drugs are merely the most obvious form of addiction in our society. Drug addiction is one of the things that undermines traditional values. Christopher Lasch Society 56
Conservatives have no understanding of modern capitalism. They have a distorted understanding of the traditional values they claim to defend. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 55
Most people no longer live in nuclear families at all. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 55
The attempt to redefine the family as a purely voluntary arrangement grows out of the modern delusion that people can keep all their options open all the time. Christopher Lasch Family 54
The left has come to regard common sense - the traditional wisdom and folkways of the community - as an obstacle to progress and enlightenment. Christopher Lasch Wisdom 52
Information, usually seen as the precondition of debate, is better understood as its by-product. Christopher Lasch Argument 51
Conservatives sense a link between television and drugs, but they do not grasp the nature of this connection. Christopher Lasch Nature 49
Traditionalists will have to master techniques of sustained activism formerly monopolized by the left. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 44
In our society, daily experience teaches the individual to want and need a never-ending supply of new toys and drugs. Christopher Lasch Society 42
Today Americans are overcome not by the sense of endless possibility but by the banality of the social order they have erected against it. Christopher Lasch Potential 41
The left sees nothing but bigotry and superstition in the popular defense of the family or in popular attitudes regarding abortion, crime, busing, and the school curriculum. Christopher Lasch Family 41
The left no longer stands for common sense, as it did in the days of Tom Paine. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 38
It is advertising and the logic of consumerism that governs the depiction of reality in the mass media. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 37
Ideologies, however appealing, cannot shape the whole structure of perceptions and conduct unless they are embedded in daily experiences that confirm them. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 36
A growing awareness of the depth of popular attachment to the family has led some liberals to concede that family is not just a buzzword for reaction. Christopher Lasch Family 36
Personal disintegration remains always an imminent danger. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 35
The hope of a new politics does not lie in formulating a left-wing reply to the right-it lies in rejecting conventional political categories. Christopher Lasch Politics 35
News represents another form of advertising, not liberal propaganda. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 35
The left has lost the common touch. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 35
The intellectual debility of contemporary conservatism is indicated by its silence on all important matters. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 34
Neoclassical economics insists that advertising cannot force consumers to buy anything they don't already want to buy. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 34
The news appeals to the same jaded appetite that makes a child tire of a toy as soon as it becomes familiar and demand a new one in its place. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 33
Make it new is the message not just of modern art but of modern consumerism, of which modern art is largely a mirror image. Christopher Lasch Art 32
The model of ownership, in a society organized round mass consumption, is addiction. Christopher Lasch Society 32
The same historical development that turned the citizen into a client transformed the worker from a producer into a consumer. Christopher Lasch Uncategorized 32

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Donald E. Westlake Quotes

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