“For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”
I Timothy 6:10
In as much as commercialism is concerned first and foremost with the bottom line, it has no rightful place in the realm of art. But musical artists today are told in no uncertain terms that there is no way around it. You must be marketed to be successful; you must be marketable. Commercialism is partly responsible for the fact that most people are largely insensible to artistic excellence in music and understand it primarily insofar as it serves to entertain them or to remind them of an emotional cliché (see ratings for ‘American Idol’). In the same way that IT has reduced beauty to fashion/sexuality and these to pornography, the exploitation of modern commercialism has reduced music to fashion/entertainment, and these to escapism.
Yes, modern entertainment/fashion, of which music is one of the biggest exports, is largely an escape—recipes are created to assimilate the dangerously profound into the familiar and deep fry flavor into the bland, and the important but scary things: the knowledge that each and every thing we do serves to permanently define us; recognition of the suffering in the world that goes unchecked; the moral ramifications of modern science/technology; the meaning of our individual lives in relation to society, history and the universe etc. are covered over and can be forgotten. Little by little we stop caring, we stop thinking, we stop being. But we are encouraged to concern ourselves with whichever superficialities cater to the system that commercialism perpetuates and exploits. And the musical artist is conditioned from an early age, along with everyone else, to desire the glamour of a rock and roll lifestyle. The commercial machine that perpetuates this dream holds the key to it, and the only condition is that the bottom line rules.
This obsession with money, which characterizes the marketing industry, is the biggest culprit. But, though the basic mechanics of this system are common knowledge, the moral implications of our investment in it are largely overlooked. A cursory glance at this process reveals an innocent and even beautiful concept, with the great fault that it lacks any defense against the corruption of greed. This is how it goes.
The public socializes in groups which share certain things in common: age, ethnicity, sex, background and religion. Shared interests further subdivide these demographics. Advertisers monitor all of these categories to ensure that production caters to their special demands.
If the demand of the public was proportionate to the true needs of its individuals then the success of a marketing campaign could be measured relatively accurately in dollars and cents. But advertisers and drug dealers have discovered that greater profit can be made through the exploitation of vices, which they validate as fashion and perpetuate as trends. Instead of facilitating an appreciation for the art of music in the public, the musical artist is pressured to conform their product to the existing consciousness of a particular demographic. And the consciousness of the people in these demographics is bombarded with petty vanities, greed, laziness, addictions etc. (ref. MTV), because these preoccupations turn them into consumers. In short, because of the materialistic ideology which has corrupted the commercial system, popular music is catered to the vices of the public; it does not perform the true function of art, which is to ennoble the consciousness of society. And, as Roger Waters bewails in ‘Welcome To The Machine’, this is how rockstars are made. “What did you dream? It’s all right, we told you what to dream. You dreamed of a big star; he played a mean guitar...So welcome to the machine.”
The rockstar is an absurd caricature—sketched by our culture over would-be artists—a purportedly original and independent person, someone who pretends to be too strong and proud to care a wit what anyone else thinks but who, in actuality, works with a marketing team to create this image according to the existing tastes of a target audience, tastes which have been molded over time by commercialism itself: clothing, hair and makeup that a target audience already likes; music that is really a slight variation on a formula that this audience has already been conditioned to understand and, therefore, enjoy; dance/rock moves; publicity stunts—whatever it takes for fame and a buck. The rockstar is as original as a McDonalds franchise and as independent as a whore…but the public has bought into this ideal, and successive generations of would-be rockstars push and shove themselves to the front of the line to “exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage” (Pink Floyd, ‘Wish You Were Here’).
Meanwhile, those who maintain their integrity are truly engaged in a war. As Thom Yorke put it in ‘Karma Police’, “I’ve given all I can, it’s not enough. I’ve given all I can, but we’re still on the payroll.” And two albums later, “We are the dollars and cents and the pounds and pence and the mark and the yen and, yeah, we’re gonna crack your little soul” (Radiohead, ‘Dollars and Cents’).
But the majority of artists who ‘make it’ lose their selves to the system, where they either burn out quickly or manage to survive by disengaging themselves from what they do. And this translates into self-destructive behavior: drug and alcohol addiction and sexual promiscuity, which is then glamorized by the commercial machine…that’s what we call success!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
The Heart of the Issue
Whether it’s children starving in sub Saharan Africa, girls being sold as slaves in Thailand, teenagers fighting in Uganda’s civil war, or even the homeless and unemployed here in the United States, our generation concerns itself with introducing social justice into situations lacking it. We don’t accept bitter tears or sickening malfeasance. We don’t tolerate the intolerable. Instead, we defend the defenseless.
We are a generation that sees injustice and fights it at every angle – through enthusiastic Facebook events and ambitious fundraising campaigns. Rallying our friends and encouraging our coworkers, we have made it our business to face situations of grief and pain with the money, education, and direct action that is needed to blot out instances of suffering. In contrast to our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, our expectations go beyond the government. Though our nation’s foreign aid and domestic programs make a dent in the problems of the world, that does not relieve us of our responsibility. On our shoulders we feel the pressure of every societal problem that we encounter and our collective conscience does not let us turn our eyes away from them. We expect action if not from others, from ourselves.
That expectation of action transcribes itself into reality. We act. We organize. We do everything to make a difference. Resources are diverted and passion is recruited. Soon, an army of nonprofits assaults the issue and individuals take up arms against its evils.
After such effort, sometimes we experience the heartening achievement of success. Some of these human travesties begin to shrink or disappear. This victory achieved, the next gaping need rises to plead for our assistance. Without a break in our step, we find ourselves rallying our peers to fight another unacceptable injustice.
Just as often, though, our painstaking efforts result in no visible change. Perhaps after years of ceaseless campaigning there are still tears being shed by numberless victims of unspeakable brutality. In moments of solitude and discouragement we look at this stagnancy and wonder what the use was – what we could possibly do against evil that knows neither boundaries nor repose.
There is a frequently missed step in this process. It has nothing to do with how to get the word out and it isn’t a critique of the way we choose which issue to fight for. Instead it has to do with the way we approach the concept of social justice. Perhaps there is a crucial philosophical foundation to this fight that we omit to acknowledge.
Take a step back and look at the state of the world. From Japan to Johannesburg and New York to New Delhi, this planet is inundated with examples of incredible pain and incomprehensible cruelty. These tragic situations aren’t exceptions – this corruption in humanity exposes itself in every culture, people group, and community. A cursory survey of the state of society in any country reveals that there is something fundamentally wrong with us. For some reason people feel compelled to hurt, enslave, and kill. Heedless of educational, financial, or social status, injustice flourishes to some extent in every human environment.
Results like these beg questions of origin. If human nature is essentially good, what explains this widespread corruption? Could there possibly be some sort of universal problem with humanity? Some sort of international, trans-generational, non-discriminating issue that has its roots in our most fundamental identity?
I realize it is highly unpopular in our modern, progressive world to talk in a way that contradicts the idea that every culture can decide right and wrong for itself, but the facts speak for themselves. It may be polite to endorse moral relativism, but the question remains – the question of evil and its presence in humanity. It may be tempting to let the blame fall on society’s structure, but we have to stop faulting circumstance and start recognizing that changes in environment won’t cure what we have.
By conducting a thorough exploration of what is wrong with mankind, we can gain a new perspective. Instead of viewing those starving children in Africa and the persecuted faithful in China as separate and unfortunately coincidental issues, we can recognize those two situations as symptoms of the same disease. After finding this connection, the world’s plague of countless injustices stops looking like a sea of unrelated issues and starts looking like the interconnected theaters of a larger war against this darker side of us.
Our new perspective also transforms the idea of basing success or failure on an issue-by-issue basis. A macro view of the problem reveals that whether we are lobbying for human trafficking awareness or going to Uganda to save child soldiers, we are all in the same fight. If one specific attempt fails but the global march against injustice continues, success has been accomplished.
The battle for social justice in the world is not a battle only for the promotion of certain results, but it is another facet of a conflict that has existed for millennia and continues to plague us. When we can take the time to explore just what it is that causes the world’s pain, we can approach more universal and timeless solutions. After all, how is someone supposed to stop outbreaks of a disease without first understanding how to eliminate, or at least explain, the root cause?
I do not doubt the effectiveness of those individuals and organizations that oppose the evil in the world – I praise their efforts. Instead, I want to urge you, reader, to take a hard look at the fundamental problems that we face. Grapple with them and use the answers you find to bring the fight against global injustice to an entirely different level. We are a generation of justice – we can either take that to be a call to fight skirmishes against independent scenarios of injustice or we can take it as a call to operate off of a new and powerful perception of humanity as a whole.
We are a generation that sees injustice and fights it at every angle – through enthusiastic Facebook events and ambitious fundraising campaigns. Rallying our friends and encouraging our coworkers, we have made it our business to face situations of grief and pain with the money, education, and direct action that is needed to blot out instances of suffering. In contrast to our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, our expectations go beyond the government. Though our nation’s foreign aid and domestic programs make a dent in the problems of the world, that does not relieve us of our responsibility. On our shoulders we feel the pressure of every societal problem that we encounter and our collective conscience does not let us turn our eyes away from them. We expect action if not from others, from ourselves.
That expectation of action transcribes itself into reality. We act. We organize. We do everything to make a difference. Resources are diverted and passion is recruited. Soon, an army of nonprofits assaults the issue and individuals take up arms against its evils.
After such effort, sometimes we experience the heartening achievement of success. Some of these human travesties begin to shrink or disappear. This victory achieved, the next gaping need rises to plead for our assistance. Without a break in our step, we find ourselves rallying our peers to fight another unacceptable injustice.
Just as often, though, our painstaking efforts result in no visible change. Perhaps after years of ceaseless campaigning there are still tears being shed by numberless victims of unspeakable brutality. In moments of solitude and discouragement we look at this stagnancy and wonder what the use was – what we could possibly do against evil that knows neither boundaries nor repose.
There is a frequently missed step in this process. It has nothing to do with how to get the word out and it isn’t a critique of the way we choose which issue to fight for. Instead it has to do with the way we approach the concept of social justice. Perhaps there is a crucial philosophical foundation to this fight that we omit to acknowledge.
Take a step back and look at the state of the world. From Japan to Johannesburg and New York to New Delhi, this planet is inundated with examples of incredible pain and incomprehensible cruelty. These tragic situations aren’t exceptions – this corruption in humanity exposes itself in every culture, people group, and community. A cursory survey of the state of society in any country reveals that there is something fundamentally wrong with us. For some reason people feel compelled to hurt, enslave, and kill. Heedless of educational, financial, or social status, injustice flourishes to some extent in every human environment.
Results like these beg questions of origin. If human nature is essentially good, what explains this widespread corruption? Could there possibly be some sort of universal problem with humanity? Some sort of international, trans-generational, non-discriminating issue that has its roots in our most fundamental identity?
I realize it is highly unpopular in our modern, progressive world to talk in a way that contradicts the idea that every culture can decide right and wrong for itself, but the facts speak for themselves. It may be polite to endorse moral relativism, but the question remains – the question of evil and its presence in humanity. It may be tempting to let the blame fall on society’s structure, but we have to stop faulting circumstance and start recognizing that changes in environment won’t cure what we have.
By conducting a thorough exploration of what is wrong with mankind, we can gain a new perspective. Instead of viewing those starving children in Africa and the persecuted faithful in China as separate and unfortunately coincidental issues, we can recognize those two situations as symptoms of the same disease. After finding this connection, the world’s plague of countless injustices stops looking like a sea of unrelated issues and starts looking like the interconnected theaters of a larger war against this darker side of us.
Our new perspective also transforms the idea of basing success or failure on an issue-by-issue basis. A macro view of the problem reveals that whether we are lobbying for human trafficking awareness or going to Uganda to save child soldiers, we are all in the same fight. If one specific attempt fails but the global march against injustice continues, success has been accomplished.
The battle for social justice in the world is not a battle only for the promotion of certain results, but it is another facet of a conflict that has existed for millennia and continues to plague us. When we can take the time to explore just what it is that causes the world’s pain, we can approach more universal and timeless solutions. After all, how is someone supposed to stop outbreaks of a disease without first understanding how to eliminate, or at least explain, the root cause?
I do not doubt the effectiveness of those individuals and organizations that oppose the evil in the world – I praise their efforts. Instead, I want to urge you, reader, to take a hard look at the fundamental problems that we face. Grapple with them and use the answers you find to bring the fight against global injustice to an entirely different level. We are a generation of justice – we can either take that to be a call to fight skirmishes against independent scenarios of injustice or we can take it as a call to operate off of a new and powerful perception of humanity as a whole.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Inward Entropy: My Life Is Boring And I'm Going to Tell You About It
A long time ago during the Roman Empire there was an astrologist named Ptolemy. Ptolemy developed a theory that became known as the Ptolemaic System, which held that the earth was the center of the universe, and the sun and all the planets orbited around our own green planet. And although today we know that this theory had absolutely no bearing on reality, at the time it was the only accepted astronomical theory of our universe throughout much of the world. Let’s fast-forward to today. A new study from the University of San Diego has discovered a disturbing trend: when surveying 20,000 college students, researchers found that rates of narcissism and evidence of narcissistic traits have risen sharply over the last few years. According to researchers, the rates of narcissism have reached epidemic proportions— on top of that, young people today suffer from narcissism at a rate that is three times higher than their elders. One of the study’s logical conclusions is that today’s young people have reached an age of entitlement, one that has become known as “Generation Me.” Clearly, believing ourselves to be the center of the universe is no new conception – egotism has distorted our objectivity since long before Ptolemy—but, in light of this self-inclination, it is incumbent upon us to discover what has inspired our generation to take self-love further than ever before.
To most of us these self-inclinations are nothing new. These studies only prove a point that most of us came to terms with long ago and have since integrated as a guilt-free modus operandi. With the advent of social networking technologies like Facebook and Myspace, it is expected that we audaciously burden anyone who will listen (or read) with the petty details of our lives. The presumptive nature of this activity has long since been forgotten, as we assume that our friends ought to care about what we did that day, how we felt, or what we went shopping for. Then, just as we were beginning to acclimate ourselves to mindlessly checking up on friends through Facebook’s anonymous medium, Twitter came along and completely destroyed any semblance of normality we still possessed regarding the boundaries of friendly communication. Suddenly it doesn’t seem strange that I receive alerts about a friend of mine encountering traffic on his way to the gym, or another friend ordering food that, “totally tastes gross, OMG!” Let’s face it--Twitter may be the apex of narcissism. If insecurity and self-infatuation had a love child, it would be Twitter. Unless we are talking about an uprising in Iran, I don’t want to hear about it.
As we strut down this path, so confidently labeled as “progressive,” it is easy to miss the fact that what would have been unthinkable and vain to previous generations is now common and expected in ours. Nevertheless, our current vice did not develop unabated. Careful examination reveals that this inward evolution is a natural outworking of our country’s worship of individualism. The centripetal force we have created around ourselves has begun a new era of egotism that our society endorses as individualistic virtue. It is a rapidly developing entropy and we are all succumbing.
Already we can see the product of this negative momentum. It has created a cacophony of ego-driven opinions and decisions that serve only to remove us from the values and morality of bygone days. It has shaped today’s politically polarized landscape while reinforcing party politics and dislike, even hatred, for those with differing opinions. Instead of engaging those we disagree with in conversation, our opinions lead us toward unilateral stonewalling, further entrenching us in ideological camps while perpetuating ignorance. John Dunne once alleged that no man is an island, but that is precisely what we are turning ourselves into.
Historically speaking, we have always been a nation of individualists, but we have not always been careful with how we exercise that gift, as is evidenced by America’s subjective and often fickle historical morality. From founding our nation on stolen land to economic troubles wrought from greed of the affluent, America’s heart for individualism has always been intertwined with her often unscrupulous sensibility. While we may not be guilty ourselves of any of these atrocities, the same selfish spirit that prompted those events still exists today. The truth is our vices have evolved, and now exist in much subtler vacancies of the human heart.
True, there is a place for individualism. Our nation was founded on individualists, men and women who refused to bow to any authority but their own at the risk of their own necks; but that heroic audacity was reinforced and guided by the tenets of democracy and freedom, things that necessitated community and solidarity. That form of individualism, driven and reinforced by a higher belief in an overarching virtue – in our founder’s case, freedom – is the kind of autonomy that we desperately need today. It produces the kind of harmony that cannot be achieved by pursuing individualism for individualism’s sake, but rather by using the tenets of that virtue as a vehicle to achieving something greater. Evolving outward and using our individuality for less selfish ends is the antithesis of the convoluted egotism so synonymous with today’s public. Empires rise and fall, movements shape and change, zealots engage and inspire, each of these inspired by an outward focused individuality; the only kind that produces collective benefit.
We must not be an end in ourselves; we should not live narcissistic lives designed to display our successes while omitting our all-too-human faults, even if that is what everyone else does. There is nothing inherently wrong with social networking, with Facebook or Myspace or Twitter, but the fact is that our obsession with these tools is symptomatic of an inner dissatisfaction. They reveal our own insecurities and feed our self-obsession while promoting an individualism that is, for the most part, very different from that of our ancestors. Our individuality is a gift, one that inspires liberal application but that must be responsibly regulated. Inward entropy is an end in itself, but evolving outward brings with it innumerable possibilities.
To most of us these self-inclinations are nothing new. These studies only prove a point that most of us came to terms with long ago and have since integrated as a guilt-free modus operandi. With the advent of social networking technologies like Facebook and Myspace, it is expected that we audaciously burden anyone who will listen (or read) with the petty details of our lives. The presumptive nature of this activity has long since been forgotten, as we assume that our friends ought to care about what we did that day, how we felt, or what we went shopping for. Then, just as we were beginning to acclimate ourselves to mindlessly checking up on friends through Facebook’s anonymous medium, Twitter came along and completely destroyed any semblance of normality we still possessed regarding the boundaries of friendly communication. Suddenly it doesn’t seem strange that I receive alerts about a friend of mine encountering traffic on his way to the gym, or another friend ordering food that, “totally tastes gross, OMG!” Let’s face it--Twitter may be the apex of narcissism. If insecurity and self-infatuation had a love child, it would be Twitter. Unless we are talking about an uprising in Iran, I don’t want to hear about it.
As we strut down this path, so confidently labeled as “progressive,” it is easy to miss the fact that what would have been unthinkable and vain to previous generations is now common and expected in ours. Nevertheless, our current vice did not develop unabated. Careful examination reveals that this inward evolution is a natural outworking of our country’s worship of individualism. The centripetal force we have created around ourselves has begun a new era of egotism that our society endorses as individualistic virtue. It is a rapidly developing entropy and we are all succumbing.
Already we can see the product of this negative momentum. It has created a cacophony of ego-driven opinions and decisions that serve only to remove us from the values and morality of bygone days. It has shaped today’s politically polarized landscape while reinforcing party politics and dislike, even hatred, for those with differing opinions. Instead of engaging those we disagree with in conversation, our opinions lead us toward unilateral stonewalling, further entrenching us in ideological camps while perpetuating ignorance. John Dunne once alleged that no man is an island, but that is precisely what we are turning ourselves into.
Historically speaking, we have always been a nation of individualists, but we have not always been careful with how we exercise that gift, as is evidenced by America’s subjective and often fickle historical morality. From founding our nation on stolen land to economic troubles wrought from greed of the affluent, America’s heart for individualism has always been intertwined with her often unscrupulous sensibility. While we may not be guilty ourselves of any of these atrocities, the same selfish spirit that prompted those events still exists today. The truth is our vices have evolved, and now exist in much subtler vacancies of the human heart.
True, there is a place for individualism. Our nation was founded on individualists, men and women who refused to bow to any authority but their own at the risk of their own necks; but that heroic audacity was reinforced and guided by the tenets of democracy and freedom, things that necessitated community and solidarity. That form of individualism, driven and reinforced by a higher belief in an overarching virtue – in our founder’s case, freedom – is the kind of autonomy that we desperately need today. It produces the kind of harmony that cannot be achieved by pursuing individualism for individualism’s sake, but rather by using the tenets of that virtue as a vehicle to achieving something greater. Evolving outward and using our individuality for less selfish ends is the antithesis of the convoluted egotism so synonymous with today’s public. Empires rise and fall, movements shape and change, zealots engage and inspire, each of these inspired by an outward focused individuality; the only kind that produces collective benefit.
We must not be an end in ourselves; we should not live narcissistic lives designed to display our successes while omitting our all-too-human faults, even if that is what everyone else does. There is nothing inherently wrong with social networking, with Facebook or Myspace or Twitter, but the fact is that our obsession with these tools is symptomatic of an inner dissatisfaction. They reveal our own insecurities and feed our self-obsession while promoting an individualism that is, for the most part, very different from that of our ancestors. Our individuality is a gift, one that inspires liberal application but that must be responsibly regulated. Inward entropy is an end in itself, but evolving outward brings with it innumerable possibilities.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
The Anti-Bono - New York Times Interview
The following is a portion of an interview with Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian woman publishing a book that criticizes western aid to Africa. I believe her opinions express what many are beginning to feel or have felt for some time, and they should be a challenge to all of us to give in sustainable ways.
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: February 19, 2009
Q: As a native of Zambia with advanced degrees in public policy and economics from Harvard and Oxford, you are about to publish an attack on Western aid to Africa and its recent glamorization by celebrities. ‘‘Dead Aid,’’ as your book is called, is particularly hard on rock stars. Have you met Bono?
I have, yes, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last year. It was at a party to raise money for Africans, and there were no Africans in the room, except for me.
What do you think of him?
I’ll make a general comment about this whole dependence on “celebrities.” I object to this situation as it is right now where they have inadvertently or manipulatively become the spokespeople for the African continent.
You argue in your book that Western aid to Africa has not only perpetuated poverty but also worsened it, and you are perhaps the first African to request in book form that all development aid be halted within five years.
Think about it this way — China has 1.3 billion people, only 300 million of whom live like us, if you will, with Western living standards. There are a billion Chinese who are living in substandard conditions. Do you know anybody who feels sorry for China? Nobody.
Maybe that’s because they have so much money that we here in the U.S. are begging the Chinese for loans.
Forty years ago, China was poorer than many African countries. Yes, they have money today, but where did that money come from? They built that, they worked very hard to create a situation where they are not dependent on aid.
What do you think has held back Africans?
I believe it’s largely aid. You get the corruption — historically, leaders have stolen the money without penalty — and you get the dependency, which kills entrepreneurship. You also disenfranchise African citizens, because the government is beholden to foreign donors and not accountable to its people.
(read the rest of the article here.)
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: February 19, 2009
Q: As a native of Zambia with advanced degrees in public policy and economics from Harvard and Oxford, you are about to publish an attack on Western aid to Africa and its recent glamorization by celebrities. ‘‘Dead Aid,’’ as your book is called, is particularly hard on rock stars. Have you met Bono?
I have, yes, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last year. It was at a party to raise money for Africans, and there were no Africans in the room, except for me.
What do you think of him?
I’ll make a general comment about this whole dependence on “celebrities.” I object to this situation as it is right now where they have inadvertently or manipulatively become the spokespeople for the African continent.
You argue in your book that Western aid to Africa has not only perpetuated poverty but also worsened it, and you are perhaps the first African to request in book form that all development aid be halted within five years.
Think about it this way — China has 1.3 billion people, only 300 million of whom live like us, if you will, with Western living standards. There are a billion Chinese who are living in substandard conditions. Do you know anybody who feels sorry for China? Nobody.
Maybe that’s because they have so much money that we here in the U.S. are begging the Chinese for loans.
Forty years ago, China was poorer than many African countries. Yes, they have money today, but where did that money come from? They built that, they worked very hard to create a situation where they are not dependent on aid.
What do you think has held back Africans?
I believe it’s largely aid. You get the corruption — historically, leaders have stolen the money without penalty — and you get the dependency, which kills entrepreneurship. You also disenfranchise African citizens, because the government is beholden to foreign donors and not accountable to its people.
(read the rest of the article here.)
G.K. Chesterton's Challenge
"No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world; but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to die to it? In this combination, I maintain, it is the rational optimist who fails, the irrational optimist who succeeds. He is ready to smash the whole universe for the sake of itself."
- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
