Words not only affect us temporarily; they change us, they socialize or unsocialize us.

There is evidence that young men in the big law firms, although they still work harder than most of their clients, do not glory in putting in night work and weekend hours as they once did.

It is among the less privileged groups relatively new to leisure and consumption that the zest for possessions retains something of its pristine energy.

Men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to become like each other.

In preindustrial cultures leisure is scarcely a burden or a "problem" because it is built into the ritual and ground plan of life for which people are conditioned in childhood; often they possess a relatively timeless attitude toward events.

The children themselves, before they get access to a car, are captives of their suburb, save for those families where the housewives surrender continuity in their own lives to chauffeur their children to lessons, doctors, and other services that could be reached via public transport in the city.

Why, I ask, isn't it possible that advertising as a whole is a fantastic fraud, presenting an image of America taken seriously by no one, least of all by the advertising men who create it?