All we can do with words and images is appropriate them, distort them, turn them against themselves. All we can do is borrow them and waste them: spend what we haven’t earned, and what we don’t even possess. That’s my definition of postmodern culture, but it’s also Citibank’s definition of a healthy economy, Jacques Lacan’s definition of love, and J. G. Ballard’s definition of life in the postindustrial ruins.

Steven Shaviro