"In the medium of technology, culture, politics, and the economy merge into an omnipresent system which swallows up or repulses all alternatives. The productivity and growth potential of this system stabilize the society and contain technical progress within the framework of domination."
In an appropriately ironic twist, whilst reading these thoughts on the fate of individuality in advanced societies, I received no fewer than 10 text messages and 50 instant messages online. I also received a number of emails directing me to, amongst other things, change my Flickr password, pay my cell phone bill, and check my bank statement, all of which I did. I browsed through Facebook. I downloaded some pirated albums. I organized my iPhoto albums. And I closed the afternoon with this sentence:
"There may be a need to keep alive the spark of utopia after all. Its function for us today is... to undermine the complacency that makes the intolerable tolerable."
Hmm.
