“I think there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, say, to life itself than this incessant business…. If a man should walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer, but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.” (Thoreau)..
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The contradiction between wanting rapid economic growth and dynamic economic change and at the same time wanting family values, community values, and stability is a contradiction so huge that it can only last because of an aggressive refusal to think about it.
(From the book AFFLUENZA (by John de Graaf), p. 132 & 50)