Vast,+Vulgar,+Meretricious

Vast, Vulgar, Meretricious America



The corruption of the American soul is consumerism. -Ben Nicholson



"The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end."

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It is the logic of consumerism that undermines the values of loyalty and permanence and promotes a different set of values that is destructive -Christopher Lasch



"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made" F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby"

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Reflections