makes about the direction of society, and the implications these would have for how people would come to think of themselves, are so startlingly prescient that it is very hard to dismiss his underlying analytical framework. The work has a prophetic quality to it that is likely to impress any reader who is willing to persevere through his rather opaque prose style.7 Rieff’s approach to culture is characterized by a number of ideas. Foremost is his notion that cultures are primarily defined by what