We infantilize ourselves Here in the US, we expect government and law to be our conscience. Our superego, you could say. It has something to do with liberal individualism, and something to do with capitalism, but I don't understand much of the theoretical aspect—what I see is what I live in. Americans are in a way crazy. We infantilize ourselves. We don't think of ourselves as citizens—parts of something larger to which we have profound responsibilities. We think of ourselves as citizens when it comes to our rights and privileges, but not our responsibilities. We abdicate our civic responsibilities to the government and expect the government, in effect, to legislate morality. David Foster Wallace, The Pale King societygovernmentpoliticsmoralitycivics
The Art of Looking Sideways A Book by Alan Fletcher www.alanfletcherarchive.com Cover art for Alan Fletcher's wonderfully expansive commonplace book. Thinking is drawing in your headThe picket fenceThe chicken was the egg's idea for getting more eggs The brain is wider than the skyWhat this site is graphicsdesigncommunicationcommonplacestylecollections
The picket fence There was a fence with spaces you could look through if you wanted to. An architect who saw this thing stood there one summer evening. Took out the spaces with great care and built a castle in the air. The fence was utterly dumbfounded, each post stood there with nothing round it. Christian Morgenstern www.andrew.cmu.edu spacearchitectureabsurdity