Quote

 From A Backward Glance by Edith Wharton, her autobiography published in 1934.

The problem was how to extract from such a subject the typical human significance which is the story-teller's reason for telling one story rather than another. In what aspect could a society of irresponsible pleasure-seekers be said to have, on the "old woe of the world," any deeper bearing than the people composing such a society could guess? The answer was that a frivolous society can acquire dramatic significance only through what its frivolity destroys. Its tragic implication lies in its power of debasing people and ideals. 

 I like that line, "a frivolous society can acquire dramatic significance only through what its frivolity destroys."  Well describes much of our academia, mainstream media and establishment political parties.  It is not sufficient to tend to basics to allow everyone to flourish.  Instead they are profoundly frivolous, manufacturing pseudo crises to destroy the fundamentals which have stood us in such good stead and replace them with unserious dreams of control and domination which have no viability outside the hot house of privileged imagination.