Under present conditions, people are preoccupied with consumer goods not because they are brainwashed but because buying is the one pleasurable activity not only permitted but actively encouraged by our rulers. The pleasure of eating an ice cream cone may… — Ellen Willis Copy Share Image
You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to surmise that war has a perverse appeal for the human race, nor is the attraction limited… — Ellen Willis Copy Share Image
For democrats, it's as crucial to defend secular culture as to preserve secular law. And in fact the two projects are inseparable: When religion… — Ellen Willis Copy Share Image
Some conservatives have expressed outrage that the views of professors are at odds with the views of students, as if ideas were entitled to… — Ellen Willis Copy Share Image
For the most part, Americans speak of culture and politics as if they were two separate realms. — Ellen Willis Copy Share Image
Mass consumption, advertising, and mass art are a corporate Frankenstein; while they reinforce the system, they also undermine it. By continually pushing the message… — Ellen Willis Copy Share Image
My education was dominated by modernist thinkers and artists who taught me that the supreme imperative was courage to face the awful truth, to… — Ellen Willis Copy Share Image
The public's continuing ambivalence about cultural matters is all the more striking given that the political conversation on these issues has for 30 years… — Ellen Willis Copy Share Image
Music that boldly and aggressively laid out what the singer wanted, loved, hated — as good rock ’n’ roll did — challenged me to… — Ellen Willis Copy Share Image
Individuals bearing witness do not change history; only movements that understand their social world can do that. Movements encourage solidarity; the moral individual is… — Ellen Willis Copy Share Image
Whatever their limitations, Freud and Marx developed complex and subtle theories of human nature grounded in their observation of individual and social behavior. The… — Ellen Willis Copy Share Image
The drug war has nothing to do with making communities livable or creating a decent future for black kids. On the contrary, prohibition is… — Ellen Willis Copy Share Image
