“We humans have always defined ourselves by narration. What's happening today is that we're allowing multi-national corporations to tell our stories for us.”
The Syntax of Sorcery (2012)
Context: We humans have always defined ourselves by narration. What's happening today is that we're allowing multi-national corporations to tell our stories for us. The theme of corporate stories (and millions drink them in every day) seldom varies: to be happy you must consume, to be special you must conform. Absurd, obviously, yet our identities have become so fragile, so elusive, that we seem content to let advertisers provide us with their version of who we are, to let them recreate us in their image: a cookie-cutter image based on market research, shallow sociology, and insidious lies. Individualism is bad for business – though absolutely necessary for freedom, progressive knowledge, and any possible interface with the transcendent. And yes, it's entirely possible to function as a free-thinking individual without succumbing to narcissism..
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Tom Robbins 250
American writer 1932Related quotes
"We are Power" speech (1980)
As quoted in "The Farewell director Lulu Wang on being caught between worlds" in Fader (16 August 2019) https://www.thefader.com/2019/08/16/the-farewell-director-lulu-wang-interview
The Earth is in a death spiral. It will take radical action to save us, 2018
“We can only accomplish what our member nations allow us to accomplish”
quoted in the article The United Nations—How Strong a World Force?, in The Watchtower magazine, September 15, 1974.
Context: You must not expect the United Nations to accomplish miracles. We are made up of sovereign nations. We can only accomplish what our member nations allow us to accomplish.
