In a media culture, we not only judge strangers by how they look but by the images of how they look. So we want attractive pictures of our heroes and repulsive images of our enemies.
Virginia PostrelRead
The Internet's abundance - of information, goods, tastes and sources of authority - creates unparalleled opportunities for individuals to get exactly what they want. But this plenitude threatens political and cultural authorities who believe in telling individuals what they can have rather than letting them choose for themselves.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The Internet empowers individuals with vast choices but challenges traditional authorities who prefer to dictate terms.
This quote by Virginia Postrel highlights the dual nature of the Internet as a tool that provides immense variety and choice to individuals while simultaneously posing a threat to established political and cultural powers that seek to control information and limit individual freedom. It suggests that the abundance of options enabled by the Internet can lead to greater personal autonomy, but also creates tension with those in authority who are accustomed to defining the limits of what is acceptable or available.
Themes
InternetAbundanceAuthorityIndividualismFreedomChoice
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about digital privacy and consumer rights, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of individual choice online.
More from Virginia Postrel
All quotes →Glamour doesn’t just happen, people don’t wake up in the morning glamorous.
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With its fluctuating forms and needless decoration, fashion epitomizes the supposedly unproductive waste that inspired 20th-century technocrats to dream of central planning. It exists for no good reason. But that's practically a definition of art.
Virginia PostrelRead
A world of few choices, whether in jeans or mates, is a world in which individual differences become sources of alienation, unhappiness, even self-loathing. If no jeans fit, you'll feel uncomfortable or inferior. If no housing developments reflect your taste for unique architecture, you'll write screeds against philistine mass culture.
Virginia PostrelRead
Most of us cluster somewhere in the middle of most statistical distributions. But there are lots of bell curves, and pretty much everyone is on a tail of at least one of them. We may collect strange memorabilia or read esoteric books, hold unusual religious beliefs or wear odd-sized shoes, suffer rare diseases or enjoy obscure movies.
Virginia PostrelRead
'Frankenstein' did not invent the fear of science; the novel found its audience because it dramatized anxieties that already existed. Although popular entertainment can, over the long run, shape public perceptions, it becomes popular in the first place only if it addresses preexisting hopes, fears, and fascinations.
Virginia PostrelRead
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