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If you can attribute your success entirely to your own mental effort, to your own attitude, to some spiritual essence that you have that is better than other peoples, then that must feel pretty good.

Barbara Ehrenreich

Middle-class-led reform movements, from the Progressive Era to the War on Poverty, have been marred by an elitist distance from the would-be beneficiaries of reform.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Class Distance War
The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Circles Overcoming Snakes
Exercise is the yuppie version of bulimia.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Exercise Fitness Health
People tend to judge presidents on how the economy performs, and yet we don’t expect them to have the power to do much about it. Or we don’t want them to exercise that power, if they were to have it.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Exercise Judging People Perform Power President
In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shite fundamentalists.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Matter Spiritual War
No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Patriotic Peace War
The internet was supposed to make this whole business of job searching rational and simple. You could post your resume and companies would search them and they’d find you. It doesn’t seem to work that way. There aren’t enough jobs for experienced, college educated managers and professionals.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

College Jobs Simple
the fastest-growing brand of religion is of the magical ‘name it and claim it’ variety, in which the deity exists only to meet one’s immediate, self-identified needs.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Exist Magical Name Need Self
Lenders, including major credit companies as well as payday lenders, have taken over the traditional role of the street-corner loan shark, charging the poor insanely high rates of interest.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Roles Sharks Taken
Personally, I can’t see why it would be any less romantic to find a husband in a nice four-color catalogue than in the average downtown bar at happy hour.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Husband Nice Romantic
Personally, I have nothing against work, particularly when performed, quietly and unobtrusively, by someone else. I just don’t happen to think it’s an appropriate subject for an ‘ethic.’
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Ethics Thinking Work
As anyone knows who has ever had to set up a military encampment or build a village from the ground up, occupations pose staggering logistical problems.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Military Occupation Village
Marriage is socialism among two people.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Eugenics Marriage Two
A cynic might conclude that the real purpose of the $500 million-a-year implant business is the implantation of fat in the bellies and rumps of underemployed plastic surgeons.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Purpose Real Years
Money does not bring happiness’ – only the wherewithal, perhaps, to endure its absence.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Absence Endure Happiness Money
So even though I consider myself a fairly upbeat person, energetic and things like that, I never do very well on happiness tests.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

Energetic Happiness Test Upbeat

If you can attribute your success entirely to your own mental effort, to your own attitude, to some spiritual essence that you have that is better than other peoples, then that must feel pretty good.

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If you can attribute your success entirely to your own mental effort, to your own attitude, to some spiritual essence that you have that is better than other peoples, then that must feel pretty good.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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