“As an injunction to be true to oneself, to place the cultivation of the self at the forefront of all concerns, authenticity has become the overriding moral imperative of modern life” ().
Nation of Rebels, p. 270
A Mistake That Has Been Made More Than Once
“Chad had been all aura then—charisma, smiles, and eyes that penetrated what you thought at first was your soul, but then just turned out to be your clothes”
Weird White Guy Behavior
“From Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha to Carlos Castenada’s The Teachings of Don Juan, the countercultural rebels desperately longed for a way to opt out of Western civilization . . . The Tibetan Book of the Dead and the I Ching became the twin bibles of the emerging movement. The result was an enormous projection of countercultural longing and fantasy onto the non-Western world.”
Nation of Rebels, p. 255
A Good Thing, Right?
“Since 1970, the average number of items for sale in North American supermarkets has increased from 8,000 to 30,000.”
Nation of Rebels, p. 245
The Chicken as Portrayed in Soviet High Heroic Art
“The new product [free-range chicken] quickly caught on. The name evokes images of the open prairie, with chickens roaming about on the horizon, the wind ruffling their feathers. It is an image that could make sense only to someone who has never actually seen or touched a live chicken . . . . The idea of ‘free range’ is simply a projection of our own desires onto our food. No matter what we do, chickens will never be the rugged individualists that we would like them to be.”
Nation of Rebels, pp. 234-235
No, No, It’s Actually Consumerism . . .
“The most plausible explanation for the fact that everyone’s eating Yukon Gold potatoes is that they are really good potatoes and people like them. If the overall result is homogeneity, how can we complain? After all, in order to avoid this outcome, someone would have to get stuck eating potatoes that they don’t like.”
Nation of Rebels, p. 232
Conformity Has An Upside
“There are often significant benefits associated with acting like everybody else. Expressing your individuality by wearing a funny tie to work is not the same thing as expressing your individuality by using file formats on your computer that are incompatible with those of your co-workers.”
Nation of Rebels, p. 230
Which Means They are Buying Something Else
“Consumers are extremely savvy, and are fully aware that there are no relevant differences between brands across a vast range of products.”
Nation of Rebels, p. 212
We Thought the Cart Was the Horse
“The assumption that advertising is able to increase the sales of goods has just not been proved, and corporations themselves make little effort to track the effectiveness of their ad campaigns. In fact, the most reliable studies don’t show that sales follow ads, but just the opposite; ads follow sales”
Nation of Rebels, p. 207
And It Is a Status System
“At some point, somehow, a tremendous cultural shift occurred. Bohemian values—that is, cool—usurped class as the dominant status system in America.”
Nation of Rebels, p. 196