(no subject)
"The whole of (the Student's) life is beyond his control, and for all he sees of the World he might as well be on another planet...Every student likes to feel he is a bohemian at heart; but the student bohemian clings to his false and degraded version of individual revolt. His rent-a-crowd militancy for the latest good cause is an aspect of his real impotence...he does have marginal freedoms; a small area of liberty which as yet escapes the totalitarian control of the Spectacle; his flexible working hours permit adventure and experiment. But he is a sucker for punishment and freedom scares him to death: he feels safer in the straightjacketed space-time of the Lecture Hall and the weekly essay. He is quite happy with this open prison organized for his benefit...The Real poverty of his Everyday Life finds it's immediate phantastic compensation in the opium of cultural commodities...he is obliged to discover modern culture as an admiring spectator...he thinks he is avant-garde if he's seen the latest Godard or 'participated' in the latest 'happening'. He discovers modernity as fast as the market can provide it: for him every rehash of ideas is a cultural revolution. His principal concern is status, and he eagerly snaps up all the paperback editions of important and 'difficult' texts with which mass culture has filled the bookstore. Unfortunately, he cannot read, so he devours them with his gaze.'" - On the Poverty of Student Life