It
is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new
theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The
good things are football, kindness, and jazz
bands.
-- George
Santayana
1863-1952,
American Philosopher, Poet
We
know that the white man does not understand our
ways. One portion of land is the same to him as
the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the
night and takes from the land whatever he needs.
The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and
when he has conquered it, he moves on.
-- Chief Seattle
1786-1866,
American Indian Chief of the Suquamish
American ''energy'' is the energy of violence,
of free-floating resentment and anxiety
unleashed by chronic cultural dislocations which
must be, for the most part, ferociously
sublimated. This energy has mainly been
sublimated into crude materialism and
acquisitiveness. Into hectic philanthropy. Into
benighted moral crusades, the most spectacular
of which was Prohibition. Into an awesome talent
for uglifying countryside and cities. Into the
loquacity and torment of a minority of gadflies:
artists, prophets, muckrakers, cranks, and nuts.
And into self-punishing neuroses. But the naked
violence keeps breaking through, throwing
everything into question.
-- Susan Sontag
1933-, American
Essayist
The quality of American life is an insult to the
possibilities of human growth... the pollution
of American space, with gadgetry and cars and TV
and box architecture, brutalizes the senses,
making gray neurotics of most of us, and
perverse spiritual athletes and strident self-transcenders
of the best of us.
-- Susan Sontag
1933-, American
Essayist
