"The freedom of conversation is being lost. If earlier it was a matter of course to take interest in one's partner, this is now replaced by inquiry into the price of his shoes or his umbrella. Irresistibly intruding upon any convivial exchange is the theme of the condition of life, of money. What this theme involves is not so much the concerns and sorrows of individuals, in which they might be able to help one another, as the overall picture. It is as if one were trapped in a theatre and had to follow the events in the stage whether one wanted to or not, had to make them again and again, willingly or unwillingly, the subject of one's thoughts and speech."
Walter Benjamin.
“The situation is complicated by the fact that less then ever does the mere reflection of reality reveal anything about reality. A photograph of the Krupp works or the AEG tells us next to nothing. Actual reality has slipped into the functional. The reification of human relations – the factory, say – means they are no longer explicit.”
Brecht.
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