Like the collector, the photographer is animated by a passion that, even when it appears to be for the present, is linked to a sense of the past.
Susan SontagRead
Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life - its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness - conjoin to dull our sensory faculties
Interpretation
What this quote means
The modern culture, characterized by excess and overproduction, diminishes our ability to fully experience life with acute senses.
In this quote, Susan Sontag critiques contemporary culture, suggesting that its focus on abundance and material wealth leads to a numbing of our sensory experiences. She argues that our surroundings, filled with surplus and overcrowdedness, have a diluting effect on our perceptions, causing us to become less aware and appreciative of the richness of life.
Themes
CultureExcessSensationExperienceModern Life
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on consumerism, one might use this quote to highlight the drawbacks of material wealth.
More from Susan Sontag
All quotes →Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.
Susan SontagRead
Gide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to!
Susan SontagRead
Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone.
Susan SontagRead
In NY sensuality completely turns into sexuality - no objects for the senses to respond to, no beautiful river, houses, people. Awful smells of the street, and dirt... Nothing except eating, if that, and the frenzy of the bed.
Susan SontagRead
It hurts to love. It's like giving yourself to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the other person may just walk off with your skin.
Susan SontagRead
Similar quotes
What makes Harlem special is that at any given time, food seekers can not only find food deeply rooted in Southern, Latin and African traditions, but also can taste the newer Senegalese, Chinese, and Italian influences as well.
Marcus SamuelssonRead
When the culture is strong, you've got this consistency where black people can grow up in these places with this voice just resonating about our special-ness in the universe. And I always say you're in trouble if you get too far away from that core that grounds you.
Bernice Johnson ReagonRead
A resilient culture has a certain amount of resistance embedded in it. Not so much to capsize it, but enough so that it doesn't atrophy.
Adam GrantRead
The priest has just baptized you a Christian with water; and I baptize you a Frenchman, daring child, with a dewdrop of champagne on your lips.
Paul ClaudelRead
The reason I loved working at Boeing was because I loved the idea of air travel as a way of bringing people and cultures together - because when we come together as people and cultures, we realize that we are not that different after all, and when we realize that we are not that different after all, the world becomes a better place.
Alan MulallyRead
Hip-hop gave a generation a common ground that didn't require either race to lose anything; everyone gained.
Jay-ZRead