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Lewis H. Lapham

Lewis H. Lapham Quotes

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“Further strengthenings of the self-centered instinct for survival recruit even greater numbers of people into some sort of ring of fellowship (church or gender, red state or blue) by populating the terra incognita outside the ring with enough barbarians to verify the existence of a civilization within--to define the preferred stock by what, as all good people agree, it decidedly is not.”

PeopleSelfStatesEnoughChurchNumbersExistenceGreaterCivilizationSurvivalRedAgreeBlueInstinctGenderRingsGood PeopleFellowshipSelf CenteredBarbariansStrengtheningRecruitVerifyPreferred Stock
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“Usually when I drank too much, I could guess why I did so, the objective being to murder a state of consciousness that I didn't have the courage to sustain--a fear of heights, which sometimes during the carnival of the 1960s accompanied my attempts to transform the bourgeois journalist into an avant-garde novelist. The stepped-up ambition was a commonplace among the would-be William Faulkners of my generation; nearly always it resulted in commercial failure and literary embarrassment.”

SometimesStatesWould BeConsciousnessToo MuchGenerationsAmbitionMurderObjectivesJournalistNovelistsHeight1960sEmbarrassmentDrankCommonplaceBourgeoisMy GenerationAvant GardeStates Of ConsciousnessCarnivals
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“What joins the Americans one to another is not a common ancestry, language or race, but a shared work of the imagination that looks forward to the making of a future, not backward to the insignia of the past. Their enterprise is underwritten by a Constitution that allows for the widest horizons of sight and the broadest range of expression, supports the liberties of the people as opposed to the ambitions of the state, and stands as premise for a narrative rather than plan for an invasion or a monument. The narrative was always plural; not one story, many stories.”

PeopleLooksStatesStoriesAmericaPastLanguageImaginationCommonRaceLibertySupportPlansExpressionAmbitionSightConstitutionNarrativeRangeEnterpriseHorizonMonumentInvasionPremisesAncestry
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“Unlike any other business in the United States, sports must preserve an illusion of perfect innocence. The mounting of this illusion defines the purpose and accounts for the immense wealth of American sports. It is the ceremony of innocence that the fans pay to see - not the game or the match or the bout, but the ritual portrayal of a world in which time stops and all hope remains plausible, in which everybody present can recover the blameless expectations of a child, where the forces of light always triumph over the powers of darkness.”

WorldChildrenStatesLightPurposeGamesForceSportsWealthPerfectUnitedBusinessPayDarknessUnited StatesFansIllusionExpectationsAccountsRemainsInnocenceTriumphPreservesMotivational SportsRitualImmenseCeremonyPlausiblePortrayalBlameless
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“The genius of capitalism consists precisely in its lack of morality. Unless he is rich enough to hire his own choir, a capitalist is a fellow who, by definition, can ill afford to believe in anything other than the doctrine of the bottom line. Deprive a capitalist of his God-given right to lie and cheat and steal, and the poor sap stands a better than even chance of becoming one of the abominable wards of the state from whose grimy fingers the Reagan Administration hopes to snatch the ark of democracy.”

BelieveWarStatesEnoughLyingGivenLinesChancePoorDemocracyRichGeniusBecomingMoralityCapitalismFellowsFingersBottomIllDefinitionsStealingDoctrineAdministrationCapitalistCheatBottom LineChoirSapArkBecoming One
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“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”

WorldHas BeensMadeSometimesStatesMomentsShowsFormPassionBlackUnitedRoomsPayUnited StatesSceneOne DayThirdsLawyerFortyPregnantThreateningBlack WomenAccompanyThird WorldElevatorsReception
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“Talk about the flag or drugs or crime (never about race or class or justice) and follow the yellow brick road to the wonderful land of consensus. In place of honest argument among consenting adults the politicians substitute a lullaby for frightened children: the pretense that conflict doesn't really exist, that we have achieved the blessed state in which we no longer need politics.”

NeedsChildrenStatesPoliticsJusticeRaceClassWonderfulLandHonestCrimePoliticianDrugConflictAdultsArgumentBlessedSubstitutesFrightenedYellowFlagsBricksConsensusPretenseLullabyYellow Brick RoadBrick Roads
Book:Hotel America: Scenes in the Lobby of the Fin-de-siècle
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