To Accept Opinions Is To Gain The

As A Social And As A Personal Force, Religion Has Become A Dependent Variable. It Does Not Originate; It Reacts. It Does Not Denounce; It Adapts. It Does Not Set Forth New Models Of Conduct And Sensibility; It Imitates. Its Rhetoric Is Without Deep Appeal; The Worship It Organizes Is Without Piety. It Has Become Less A Revitalization Of The Spirit In Permanent Tension With The World Than A Respectable Distraction From The Sourness Of Life.

Prestige Is The Shadow Of Money And Power. Where These Are, There It Is. Like The National Market For Soap Or Automobiles And The Enlarged Arena Of Federal Power, The National Cash-in Area For Prestige Has Grown, Slowly Being Consolidated Into A Truly National System.

The Professional Celebrity, Male And Female, Is The Crowning Result Of The Star System Of A Society That Makes A Fetish Of Competition. In America, This System Is Carried To The Point Where A Man Who Can Knock A Small White Ball Into A Series Of Holes In The Ground With More Efficiency Than Anyone Else Thereby Gains Social Access To The President Of The United States.

In The World Of The Celebrity, The Hierarchy Of Publicity Has Replaced The Hierarchy Of Descent And Even Of Great Wealth.

Ibm Plus Reality Plus Humanism = Sociology.