Capitalism proceeds through creative destruction. What is created is capitalism in a 'new and improved' form - and what is destroyed is self-sustaining capacity, livelihood and dignity of its innumerable and multiplied 'host organisms' into which all of us are drawn/seduced one way or another.

The question of identity has separated from the issue of 'assimilation', having lost much of its drama and become, so to speak, a secular problem.

All the skills which I have acquired during my sociological life allow me to diagnose and explain what is going on, but not to predict what will happen.

Freedom without security portends chaos, perpetual anxiety and fear.

We belong to talking, not what talking is about... Stop talking - and you are out. Silence equals exclusion.

What is assumed to be the materialisation of the inner truth of the self is in fact an idealisation of the material - objectified - traces of consumer choices.

Where we hope to land (and where we do land, though only for a fleeting moment, enough for tired wings to catch the wind anew) is a 'there' which we thought of little and knew of even less.