The American Oligarchy Increasingly Has Less In

The Mystical Nature Of American Consumption Accounts For Its Joylessness. We Spend A Great Deal Of Time In Stores, But If We Don't Seem To Take Much Pleasure In Our Buying, It's Because We're Engaged In The Acts Of Sacrifice And Self-definition. Abashed In The Presence Of Expensive Merchandise, We Recognize Ourselves . . . As Suppliants Admitted To A Shrine.

Seeing Is Believing, And If An American Success Is To Count For Anything In The World It Must Be Clothed In The Raiment Of Property. As Often As Not It Isn't The Money Itself That Means Anything; It Is The Use Of Money As The Currency Of The Soul.

About The Presence Of Death And Dying I Don't Remember The Society In The 1950s Being So Skittish As It Has Since Become. People Still Died At Home, Among Relatives And Friends, Often In The Care Of A Family Physician. Death Was Still To Be Seen Sitting In The Parlor, Hanging In A Butcher Shop, Sometimes Lying In The Street.

Dissent Is What Rescues Democracy From A Quiet Death Behind Closed Doors.

America Is About Class. To Pretend That It Isn't Is Very Ignorant. No Society Has Ever Existed Without Some Kind Of A Ruling Class.