Shopper Quotes
She...cast an eye over the contents of his cart, wondering whether this was totally random stuff...to perfect his Walmart shopper disguise: 5.56-millimeter cartridges, a water purification device, jerky, bug repellent, a camouflage hat. Freeze-dried meals. A roll of black plastic sheeting. Parachute cord. Batteries. A folding bucksaw. Camouflage binoculars....
It turned out that Sokolov really did want to buy all that stuff. Not because he envisioned any particular use for it. He just believed in stocking up on such things, on general principles, whenever an opportunity presented itself.
He would fit in well here.
Neal Stephenson
"When material needs are largely satisfied,” writes Carl Rogers, "as they tend to be for many people in this affluent society, individuals are turning to the psychological world, groping for a greater degree of authenticity and fulfillment.” The clear distinction between material and psychic needs is already the mystification; it capitulates to the ideology of the affluent society which affirms the material structure is sound, conceding only that some psychic and spiritual values might be lacking. Exactly this distinction sets up "authenticity” and "fulfillment” as so many more commodities for the shopper. Rather it is the fissure itself which is the source of the ills-between work and "free” time, material structure and psychological "world,” producers and consumers.
Russell Jacoby
