Expecting the contradictory and the impossible (Boorstin)
July 21st, 2006 | Published in Consumerism, Life, Economics, Quotes, Culture
We expect anything and everything. We expect the contradictory and the impossible. We expect compact cars which are spacious; luxurious cars that are economical. We expect to be rich and charitable, powerful and merciful, active and reflective, kind and competitive. We expect to be inspired by mediocre appeals for “excellence,” to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy. We expect to eat and stay thin, to be constantly on the move and ever more neighborly, to go to “a church of our choice” and yet feel its guiding power over us, to revere God and to be God.
–Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 4