Wired News: Nostalgia for Mud
“This is the circle of bourgeois nostalgia for naivety,” warned Theodor Adorno in Minima Moralia. “The soullessness of those in the margins of civilization, forbidden self-determination by daily need, at once appealing and tormenting, becomes a phantasm of soul to the well-provided-for, whom civilization has taught to be ashamed of the soul.”
It always seems healthy to take on these kinds of cruel observations, like a cold shower… bracing. But cynicism shouldn’t be the only response.
When you have everything you want, you can’t have need. Necessity is necessary.