Jacques Ellul observes in Propaganda: When dialogue begins, propaganda ends. His theme, that propaganda is not this or that ideology but rather the action and coexistence of all media at once, explains why propaganda is environmental and invisible. The total life of any culture tends to be 'propaganda', for this reason. It blankets perception and supresses awareness, making the counter environments created by the artist indispensable to survival and freedom. (p.77)

The 'tragic flaw' is not a detail of characterization, a mere 'fly in the ointment', but a structural feature of ordinary consciousness. (p.45)

Another theme of the Wake that helps in the understanding of the paradoxical shift from cliche to archetype is 'pastimes are past times'. The dominant technolo…

Since Sputnik and the satellites, the planet is enclosed in a manmade environment that ends 'Nature' and turns the globe into a repertory theater to be program…

We had a dim premonition that power-mad gangsters would one day use art itself as a way of deadening men's minds.

The imaginative artist willy-nilly influences his time. If he understands his responsibility and acts on it-taking the art seriously always, himself never quit…

'Censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.'