The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification

Description

Paul Roberts' galvanizing, sweeping social critique of our Impulse Society confronts a world where business shamelessly seeks the fastest reward, regardless of the long-term social costs; where political leaders reflexively choose short-term fixes over broad, sustainable social progress; where individuals feel increasingly exploited by a marketplace obsessed with our private cravings but oblivious to our spiritual well-being or the larger needs of our families and communities. How did the pursuit of short-term self-gratification, once scorned as a sign of personal weakness, became the default principle not only for individuals but for all sectors of our society? Drawing on the latest research in economics, psychology, political philosophy, and business management, Roberts shows how a potent combination of rapidly advancing technologies, corrupted ideologies, and bottom-line business ethics has pushed us across a threshold to an unprecedented state: a virtual merging of the market and the self. And yet, even as our dilemma grows, The Impulse Society finds hopeful signs-not least, a revolt among everyday Americans against the forces of an unchecked market. Inspired by their example, Roberts outlines a way back to a world of real and lasting good.

Paul Roberts is the author of The End of Oil and The End of Food. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the New Republic, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He was a finalist for a National Magazine Award in 1999 and the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award in 2005. Roberts appears regularly on TV and radio. He lives in Washington State.

The Impulse Society will shake up our national conversation the way Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism did four decades ago. Paul Roberts challenges people of all political views to ask: What happens when instant gratification goes from being a bad personal habit to becoming the driving force in our political and economic life? It's not pretty, and Roberts is calling us back from the brink. -- E.J. Dionne, author of Our Divided Political Heart Paul Roberts takes the time to reveal how the values and tempo of the marketplace have overtaken those of real life. The Impulse Society is both an apt description of our predicament and a welcome invitation to assert our humanity again. -- Douglas Rushkoff, author of Present Shock Paul Roberts traces the country's many, disparate ills to the same source: as a nation, we've abandoned the common good. His analysis is smart, provocative, and timely. The Impulse Society compels us to reexamine what it is that we really want. -- Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction The Impulse Society is a book that taps into a sense that we're all adrift -- and finds that technological, economic, and social change has caused us to lose the community that had anchored us. A society that tries to give (and sell) each of us everything we want, Roberts writes, is a society nobody wants. Roberts harkens back to the greatest critics of American individualism -- Tocqueville, Dewey, Nisbet, Lasch, Putnam -- and finds a call for community as urgent as ever. -- Evan Soltas, economics columnist for Bloomberg View In a brilliant feat of analytic journalism, Roberts shows how American judgment has skewed sharply toward the short-term in everything from political outlook to consumer choices -- with devastating consequences for families, communities, and even a sense of national purpose. Delayed gratification was once thought of as a quintessential mark of maturity -- for societies as much as for individuals. It is a value we need to rediscover -- and in this instance, without delay. -- Cullen Murphy, author of Are We Rome?, Editor-at-Large, Vanity Fair Paul Roberts has written eloquently on very big topics before -- but maybe never quite as eloquently, on quite as central a predicament. I guarantee this will jog your thinking, and perhaps put you on a new path. -- Bill McKibben, author Wandering Home