subverting the empire

I'm reading this at the moment. Here are a couple of quotes I liked.

''Dreams, by definition, are supposed to be unique and imaginative. Yet the bulk of the population is dreaming the same dream. It's a dream of wealth, power, fame, plenty of sex and exciting recreational opportunities' When a whole population dreams the same dream, empire is triumphant.'

'Even in a post-modern world, the human mind continues to think in terms of stories, and naturally seeks to order experience, looks for explanations of sequences of events, is attracted to dramas. There is, if you will, a narrative quality to human experience. In allowing ourselves to adopt and be adopted by a particular story, we are in fact assuming a set of practices which will shape the way we relate to our world and destiny.'

I'd never made the link between idolatry and imagination before, but in the modern context you can see how this plays out - we take on the dreams of the idol of consumerism, and we cannot imagine any other way things could be.