Ostensibly rigorous and realistic, contemporary conservatism is an ideology of denial. Its symbol is a smile button.

A child's appetite for new toys appeal to the desire for ownership and appropriation: the appeal of toys comes to lie not in their use but in their status as possessions.

The left has come to regard common sense - the traditional wisdom and folkways of the community - as an obstacle to progress and enlightenment.

Make it new is the message not just of modern art but of modern consumerism, of which modern art is largely a mirror image.

It is advertising and the logic of consumerism that governs the depiction of reality in the mass media.

The left ask people to believe that there is no conflict between feminism and the family.

The hope of a new politics does not lie in formulating a left-wing reply to the right-it lies in rejecting conventional political categories.