Tom Friedman's review of recent book reflects his surprise at the extent to which we have evolved from a market economy to an economy in which everything is for sale. The consequence is that market values trump civic values. We no longer share a common social environment. We live in the cocoon of our market segment, and advertisers have figured out how to reach each segment with their corporate messages and their logo.
This reminds me of a scene from an old Woody Allen movie. He had a recurring nightmare that he was trapped in hole. As he struggled to dig himself out of the hole, he had to listen to an insurance salesman endlessly giving his pitch to him. I guess it was Allen's version of the Myth of Sisyphus. You may recall that Sisyphus angered one of the Greek gods, and that his punishment was to roll a stone up a hill until he reached the top. The God set things up so that the stone would roll down the hill as he neared the top and Sisyphus had to start all over again on his impossible task. Woody Allen made his Sisyphean task even worse by being forced to endure a sales pitch during his futile efforts to dig out of the hole.
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