It isn't money itself that causes the trouble, but the use of money as votive offering and pagan ornament. Lewis H. Lapham More Quotes by Lewis H. Lapham More Quotes From Lewis H. Lapham Unlike any other business in the United States, sports must preserve an illusion of perfect innocence. The mounting of this illusion defines the purpose and accounts for the immense wealth of American sports. It is the ceremony of innocence that the fans pay to see - not the game or the match or the bout, but the ritual portrayal of a world in which time stops and all hope remains plausible, in which everybody present can recover the blameless expectations of a child, where the forces of light always triumph over the powers of darkness. Lewis H. Lapham business sports children If we could let go of our faith in money, who knows what we might put in its place? Lewis H. Lapham money letting-go might Love of country follows from the exercise of its freedoms, not from pride in its fleets or its armies. Lewis H. Lapham freedom pride country Money is like fire, an element as little troubled by moralizing as earth, air and water. Men can employ it as a tool or they can dance around it as if it were the incarnation of a god. Money votes socialist or monarchist, finds a profit in pornography or translations from the Bible, commissions Rembrandt and underwrites the technology of Auschwitz. It acquires its meaning from the uses to which it is put. Lewis H. Lapham technology money men The American press is, and always has been, a booster press, its editorial pages characteristically advancing the same arguments as the paid advertising copy. Lewis H. Lapham advertising pages media The figure of the enthusiast who has just discovered jogging or a new way to fix tofu can be said to stand or, more accurately, to tremble on the threshold of conversion, as the representative American Lewis H. Lapham jogging tofu enthusiasm Never in the history of the world have so many people been so rich; never in the history of the world have so many of those same people felt themselves so poor. Lewis H. Lapham poverty people world Among all the emotions, the rich have the least talent for love. It is possible to love one's dog, dress or duck-shooting hat, but a human being presents a more difficult problem. The rich might wish to experience feelings of affection, but it is almost impossible to chip away the enamel of their narcissism. They take up all the space in all the mirrors in the house. Their children, who represent the most present and therefore the most annoying claim on their attention, usually receive the brunt of their irritation. Lewis H. Lapham dog love children [For American consumer society], the country's reserves of ignorance constitute a natural resource as precious as the Mississippi River or the long-lost herds of buffalo. Lewis H. Lapham ignorance rivers country The American oligarchy increasingly has less in common with the American people than it does with the equivalent oligarchies in Germany or Mexico or Japan. Lewis H. Lapham japan doe people It is no accident that banks resemble temples, preferably Greek, and that the supplicants who come to perform the rites of deposit and withdrawal instinctively lower their voices into the registers of awe. Even the most junior tellers acquire within weeks of their employment the officiousness of hierophants tending an eternal flame. Lewis H. Lapham flames voice greek Democracy is born in dirt, nourished by the digging up and turning over as much of it as can be brought within reach of a television camera or subpoena. Lewis H. Lapham digging cameras democracy Label celebrity a consumer society's most precious consumer product, and eventually it becomes the hero with a thousand faces, the packaging of the society's art and politics, the framework of its commerce, and the stuff of its religion. Lewis H. Lapham labels hero art We need not seek our own best selves, and in the meantime we inoculate ourselves against the viruses of age and idealism, which, as the advertising agencies well know, depress sales and sour the feasts of consumption. Lewis H. Lapham depressing agency self It is the fear of death - 24/7 in every shade of hospital white and doomsday black--that sells the pharmaceutical, political, financial, film, and food product promising to make good the wish to live forever. Lewis H. Lapham white forever death Let the corporations do as they please -- pillage the environment, falsify their advertising, rig the securities markets -- and it is none of the federal government's business to interfere with the will of heaven. Lewis H. Lapham corporations government heaven In the garden of tabloid delight, there is always a clean towel and another song. Lewis H. Lapham delight garden song Wars might come and go, but the seven o'clock news lives forever. Lewis H. Lapham news forever war At this late stage in the history of American capitalism I'm not sure I know how much testimony still needs to be presented to establish the relation between profit and theft. Lewis H. Lapham profit stage needs The rich, like well brought up children, are meant to be seen, not heard. Lewis H. Lapham rich heard children