This was a remarkable admission. Here was a man who had, for decades, lectured extensively at the finest universities, at private institutions devoted to advanced thought, in the boardrooms of corporations who had recompensed him handsomely for his time, on the most difficult and dense social, economic, and political problems of the time, and who counted among his acolytes artists, captains of industry, and government officials (one of whom had become president). He had published a large book, Burning Down The House Around Us, that traced with erudition the evolution of ideas of liberation; his chapter on the necessity of seeking out new forms of pleasure had revolutionized thinking around social norms to the point where it was still de rigueur for college freshmen to quote from it from it a generation later. He had even been, in his own idiosyncratic fashion, a successful practitioner of this theory, engaging in dalliances with some of the world’s most elegant and desirable women. And yet, he could not figure out how to operate a soft-serve yogurt machine?
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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