The current age is beginning to seem an age of social insecurity, whose leading belief is in the inability of individuals to change the drift of things. A dash of Marxism, a touch of Freudianism, a vague groaning about something called the System, and distrust of action, a denigration of success—such appear to constitute the chief strands of social thought of the day. None of this allows much leeway for the use of intelligence, courage, and resolution on the part of individuals. It is almost as if we subscribed to a form of social determinism that has no name and whose causes and effects we haven’t quite managed to formulate, but to which we feel ourselves helplessly hostage.
—Ambition: The Secret Passion
by Joseph Epstein, 1989
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