Just a moment...

Then the pendulum swung away from the frivolous notion that art is merely technique, but it swung a very long distance, to the point of asserting that a book can only be “good” if it is founded on a “true” vision of life. Naturally the people who believe this also believe that they are in possession of the truth themselves. Catholic critics, for in

Keeping a concept in good shape requires an attentiveness to its history, the valuable role it plays, and how it might be adapted to changing circumstances, always bearing in mind that it operates within an evolving network of other concepts, each of which makes its own special contribution.

The reason that focus groups and capitalist feedback systems fail, even when they generate commodities that are immensely popular, is that people do not know what they want. This is not only because people’s desire is already present but concealed from them (although this is often the case). Rather, the most powerful forms of desire are precisely c