Great Mustachian Passages from Any Book

[Malaysia41]

Share any passages from any books that hit on Mustachianism in some way.  The books themselves needn't be mustachian in overall theme.  I'll go first. 

I'm re-reading The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson, and this passage, written in 1989, struck me.  Here goes (channeling typing 101 right now):

In the evening I sat in Hal and Lucia's house, eating their food, drinking their wine, admiring their children and their house and furniture and possessions, their easy wealth and comfort , and felt a sap for ever having left America.  Life was so abundant here, so easy, so convenient.  Suddenly I wanted a refrigerator that made its own ice-cubes and a waterproof radio for the shower.  I wanted an electric orange juicer and a room ionizer and a wristwatch that would keep me in touch with my biorhythms.  I wanted it all.  Once in the evening I went upstairs to go to the bathroom and walked past one of the children's bedrooms.  The door was open and a bedside light was on.  There were toys everywhere - on the floor, on shelves, tumbling out of a wooden trunk.  It looked like Santa's workshop.  But there was nothing extraordinary about this; it was just a typical middle-class American bedroom.

And you should see American closets.  They are always full of yesterday's enthusiasms: golf-clubs, scuba diving equipment, tennis-rackets, exercise machines, tape recorders, dark-room equipment, objects that once excited their owner and then were replaced by other objects even more shiny and exciting.  That is the great, seductive thing about America - the people always get what they want, right now, whether it is good for them or not.  There is something deeply worrying, and awesomely irresponsible, about this endless self-gratification, this constant appeal to the baser instincts.

Do you want zillions off your state taxes even at the risk of crippling education?
'Oh, yes!' the people cry.

Do you want TV that would make an imbecile weep?
'Yes, please!'

Shall we indulge ourselves with the greatest orgy of consumer spending that the world has ever known?
'Sounds neat! Let's go for it!'

The whole of the global economy is based on supplying the cravings of two per cent of the world's population.  If Americans suddenly stopped indulging themselves, or ran out of closet space, the world would fall apart.  If you ask me, that's crazy.

I should point out that I am not talking about Hal and Lucia in all this.  They are good people and lead modest and responsible lives.  Their closets aren't full of scuba diving equipment and seldom used tennis rackets.  They are full of mundane items like buckets and galoshes, ear-muffs and scouring powders.  I know this for a fact because late in the night when everyone was asleep I crept out of bed and had a good look.

So what's yours?  What passage - from any book - popped out of the page and punched you in the face, tickled your chin or otherwise made you take notice reading its witty mustachian musings?

[kreyc]

"The activities themselves—not the materials—are what's essential to our enjoyment and personal development." -Francine Jay The Joy of Less

[Rincewind]

...the USA, which might be cast as the scriptwriter for this painful drama of soulless, miserable affluence...

...Fifty years ago, Erich Fromm anticipated the damaging effects of affluence and the emergent post-modern culture (Borgmann 1993), where all is surface and people pledge their allegiance to the logo and the brand name, rather than to human family, with whom we share the planet:

In the end, such a civilisation can produce only a mass man: incapable of choice, incapable of spontaneous, self-directed activities: at best patient, docile, disciplined to monotonous work to an almost pathetic degree, but increasingly irresponsible as his choices become fewer - the ideal type desired, if never quite achieved, by the advertising agency and the sales organizations of modern business, or by the propaganda office and the planning bureaus of totalitarian and quasi-totalitarian governments . . . the human being who has resigned himself to a life devoid of thinking, ambition, pride and personal achievement, has resigned himself to the death of attributes which are instinctive elements of human life.

(Fromm 1956: 77-8)

Even Fromm might have been thrown by the emergence of the 'brand culture' that has become such a part of late twentieth and early twenty-first century life. Labels - from fashion to food and drink - have become the key signifiers for membership of an amorphous group, underpinned by global capitalism, which worships daily at the altar of materialism, the shopping mall. Our parents' generation, to whom Fromm issued his dire warning, would not have understood why young ( and not so Young) people would want to display labels on their clothing, and 'be seen' consuming certain brands of food or drink. They were still embedded in a culture where food, drink, cars, clothing and housing were merely the processes for living life, not the point of life itself.

Western society has become increasingly desperate in its 'search for mechanical and rational and symbolic securities, which substitute for the spirit-confidence of the Nature [humankind] has host' (Hughes 1994). A more critical view would suggest that the incessant rounds f shopping, drinking, 'texting' friends, flicking through magazines, clubbing and numerous other 'diversions' are illustrations of how people anaesthetise themselves; people whose lives have grown increasingly meaningless. Although there is nothing specifically 'unhealthy' about any of these things, individually, the apparent addiction to trivia or sensation ( or 'trivial sensation') may simply lead to further discontent, or even be a sign that such discontent is already deeply rooted.

This was from 'The Tidal Model - A guide for Mental Health Professionals.' (2005) by P. Barker and P. Buchanan-Barker. It was in a chapter about relating to others and saying that no man is an island, but our materialistic culture encourages isolation. A surprising bit of anti-materialism!

[Torran]

...the USA, which might be cast as the scriptwriter for this painful drama of soulless, miserable affluence...

...Fifty years ago, Erich Fromm anticipated the damaging effects of affluence and the emergent post-modern culture (Borgmann 1993), where all is surface and people pledge their allegiance to the logo and the brand name, rather than to human family, with whom we share the planet:

In the end, such a civilisation can produce only a mass man: incapable of choice, incapable of spontaneous, self-directed activities: at best patient, docile, disciplined to monotonous work to an almost pathetic degree, but increasingly irresponsible as his choices become fewer - the ideal type desired, if never quite achieved, by the advertising agency and the sales organizations of modern business, or by the propaganda office and the planning bureaus of totalitarian and quasi-totalitarian governments . . . the human being who has resigned himself to a life devoid of thinking, ambition, pride and personal achievement, has resigned himself to the death of attributes which are instinctive elements of human life.

(Fromm 1956: 77-8)

Even Fromm might have been thrown by the emergence of the 'brand culture' that has become such a part of late twentieth and early twenty-first century life. Labels - from fashion to food and drink - have become the key signifiers for membership of an amorphous group, underpinned by global capitalism, which worships daily at the altar of materialism, the shopping mall. Our parents' generation, to whom Fromm issued his dire warning, would not have understood why young ( and not so Young) people would want to display labels on their clothing, and 'be seen' consuming certain brands of food or drink. They were still embedded in a culture where food, drink, cars, clothing and housing were merely the processes for living life, not the point of life itself.

Western society has become increasingly desperate in its 'search for mechanical and rational and symbolic securities, which substitute for the spirit-confidence of the Nature [humankind] has host' (Hughes 1994). A more critical view would suggest that the incessant rounds f shopping, drinking, 'texting' friends, flicking through magazines, clubbing and numerous other 'diversions' are illustrations of how people anaesthetise themselves; people whose lives have grown increasingly meaningless. Although there is nothing specifically 'unhealthy' about any of these things, individually, the apparent addiction to trivia or sensation ( or 'trivial sensation') may simply lead to further discontent, or even be a sign that such discontent is already deeply rooted.

This was from 'The Tidal Model - A guide for Mental Health Professionals.' (2005) by P. Barker and P. Buchanan-Barker. It was in a chapter about relating to others and saying that no man is an island, but our materialistic culture encourages isolation. A surprising bit of anti-materialism!

This is absolutely fascinating - so beautifully put. Thanks.

[Malaysia41]

Western society has become increasingly desperate in its 'search for mechanical and rational and symbolic securities, which substitute for the spirit-confidence of the Nature [humankind] has host' (Hughes 1994). A more critical view would suggest that the incessant rounds f shopping, drinking, 'texting' friends, flicking through magazines, clubbing and numerous other 'diversions' are illustrations of how people anaesthetise themselves; people whose lives have grown increasingly meaningless. Although there is nothing specifically 'unhealthy' about any of these things, individually, the apparent addiction to trivia or sensation ( or 'trivial sensation') may simply lead to further discontent, or even be a sign that such discontent is already deeply rooted.

yes.  I sometimes get stuck there.

[velocistar237]

...and numerous other 'diversions' are illustrations of how people anaesthetise themselves; people whose lives have grown increasingly meaningless...

I'm surprised they didn't mention surfing the web.