Christopher Lasch

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

The left dismisses talk about the collapse of family life and talks instead about the emergence of the growing new diversity of family types.

The attempt to redefine the family as a purely voluntary arrangement grows out of the modern delusion that people can keep all their options open all the time.

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