American Studies by Louis Menand

“The dark side (of American life) is what he (Normal Mailer) calls ‘technology,’ ordinarily a term of specific application, but which he uses broadly to mean all efforts to clean up human messiness, to find a nice, rational, hygienic shortcut to satisfaction. His shorthand term for the results of such efforts is ‘plastic.’ Plastic, in his view, threatens freedom. It is a metaphor for creeping totalitarianism.”

-Louis Menand