Planning For The Future Without A Sense

Beware Of Charisma . . . Representative Men; Was Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1850 Phrase For The Great Men In A Democracy . . . Is There Some Common Quality Among These Representative Men Who Have Been Most Successful As Our Leaders? I Call It The Need To Be Authentic-or, As Our Dictionaries Tell Us, Conforming To Fact And Therefore Worthy Of Trust, Reliance Or Belief. While The Charismatic Has An Uncanny Outside Source Of Strength, The Authentic Is Strong Because He Is What He Seems To Be.

The Modern American Tourist Now Fills His Experience With Pseudo-events. He Has Come To Expect Both More Strangeness And More Familiarity Than The World Naturally Offers. He Has Come To Believe That He Can Have A Lifetime Of Adventure In Two Weeks And All The Thrills Of Risking His Life Without Any Real Risk At All.

The Mind Is A Vagrant Thing.... Thinking Is Not Analogous To A Person Working In A Laboratory Who Invents Something On Company Time.

In Fast-moving, Progress-conscious America, The Consumer Expects To Be Dizzied By Progress. If He Could Completely Understand Advertising Jargon He Would Be Badly Disappointed. The Half-intelligibility Which We Expect, Or Even Hope, To Find In The Latest Product Language Personally Reassures Each Of Us That Progress Is Being Made: That The Pace Exceeds Our Ability To Follow.

. . . The Messiness Of Experience, That May Be What We Mean By Life.