September 14, 2025

The organization of American society is an interlocking system of semi-monopolies notoriously venal, an electorate notoriously unenlightened, misled by a mass media notoriously phony.

Paul Goodman (1911–1972), American author and social critic, The Portable Curmudgeon, Jon Winokur, ed. (New York: 1987), p.15

To what extent are you venal? Unenlightened? Phony? In other words: corrupt, uninformed, neither genuine nor real?

I can live with “notoriously”. If he had said “totally”, I might have despaired of America.