The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
Don DelilloRead
Look at those numbers running. Money makes time. It used to be the other way around. Clock time accelerated the rise of capitalism. People stopped thinking about eternity. They began to concentrate on hours, measurable hours,man-hours, using labor more efficiently.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the relationship between time and money in the context of capitalism.
Don Delillo's quote examines how the rise of capitalism transformed society's perception of time from a spiritual or eternal concept to a measurable commodity. As money became a dominant force, time was increasingly viewed in terms of efficiency and productivity, leading to a narrowed focus on immediate gains rather than longer-term meaning or existential reflections.
In practice
In a discussion on the impact of capitalism during a seminar.
The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.
American writers ought to stand and live in the margins, and be more dangerous.
For me, writing is a concentrated form of thinking.
I used to think it was possible for an artist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory.
[I]n the American soul there is a lonely individual standing in a vast landscape. He is either on a horse or driving a car, depending, and either way he’s carrying a gun. This is one of the essential images in American mythology.
Time will discover everything to posterity; it is a babbler, and speaks even when no question is put.
The law is the collective organization of the individual's right to lawful defense of his life, liberty and property. When it is used for anything else, no matter how noble the cause, it becomes perverted and justice is weakened. Thus, the law has become perverted by stupid greed and false philanthropy.
A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.
The irrational in the human has something about it altogether repulsive and terrible, as we see in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape.
The profit orientation is only one orientation of a person. The same people who are interested in profit-making are also selfless. I am not saying that capitalist theory is wrong. I am saying that it has not been interpreted and practiced fully.
How accurately can the law fix the crime? There has to be a mechanism for very fast action. The law is like this: catch them and punish them.
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