Consider the genuine glories of the movement. The varied ways in which it retains the allegiance of its members. The subtlety and flexibility of its teachings. The loftiness of its ideals. Finally, what all this amounts to is the creation of a certain type: the member. Far from conspiring to overturn society, as many people suppose, the movement operates mostly upon itself, not upon the world. And for what end? To knit together ever more tightly those who belong.
—Susan Sontag, “Old Complaints Revisited”