The Insidious Ethic of Conscience

Explore 1 quote from The Insidious Ethic of Conscience

When we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a pragmatic necessity for us to have it, but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, then is when we join the fashionable madmen, and then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble.

Joan Didion

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More information about this quote

Topic

Consumerism

Author

Joan Didion

Source

The Insidious Ethic of Conscience The American Scholar

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1965 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Didion, Joan. "The Insidious Ethic of Conscience." The American Scholar, 1965.

Current Citation

Didion, Joan. "On Morality." Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968.