One of the real problems of society is that its far too atomized, what sociologists call secondary associations.
The Left, in a general sense, is very much atomized. We live in highly atomized societies. People are pretty much alone; it's you and your iPad.
We live in a bureaucratic, atomized world, but the system is still run by human beings. If as a writer, you want to capture the world we live in, I think you have some responsibility to at least try to get at some of the ways we've chosen to govern ourselves.
There are bands, like R. E. M. , who want to have 17 records, and some are terrible and some are great. I don't know if people think like that anymore. Things are more atomized now.
People have to be atomized and segregated and alone. They're not supposed to organize, because then they might be something beyond spectators of action. They might actually be participants if many people with limited resources could get together to enter the political arena. That's really threatening.
The ideal is to create a completely fragmented atomized society where everybody is totally alone, doing nothing but trying to pursue created wants, and the wants are created.
