Quote of the Day | August 29, 2008: Some Other Breed of Man Has Won Out

From Henry Miller's 1945 The Air-Conditioned Nightmare:

As to whether I have been deceived, disillusioned. . . . The answer is yes, I suppose. I had the misfortune to be nourished by the dreams and visions of great Americans -- the poets and the seers. Some other breed of man has won out. This world which is in the making fills me with dread. I have seen it germinate; I can read it like a blue-print. It is not a world I want to live in. It is a world suited for monomaniacs obsessed with the idea of progress -- but a false progress, a progress which stinks. It is a world cluttered with useless objects which men and women, in order to be exploited and degraded, are taught to regard as useful. The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. Whatever does not lend itself to being bought and sold, whether in the realm of things, ideas, principles, dreams or hopes, is debarred. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man of vision a criminal.

Tags: Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare