Our dating rituals have shown American corporations how to use brainwashing and mind control techniques to control our consumer economy. The Last Horizon offers you a new way to face the rest of your life. The Class System offers a description of American society that you have encountered every day of your life, but the explanation has remained invisible to your eyes until now. Open your eyes to the social world around you. Feel the power.
Excerpt:
Has there ever been a culture in which the influences of sexual attractiveness and celebrity worship been more prevalent or invasive? I could have researched this concept for precise facts and figures, but those details would have constituted another book. Modern Americans have spent more money on weight-loss programs than the gross national product of most of the world’s countries. We have also spent similarly outrageous amounts on the buying and selling of celebrity status. Just how large is the make-up industry in the U.S.? The fashion industry is almost as insane. Women don’t have a monopoly on the insanity, either. How much do we pay professional football players who cannot spell psychology? How much do we pay teenage pop singers who cannot conjugate a verb?
The Class System can be viewed on many levels. The simplest of Survival of the Fittest concepts lie at the bottom strata. Above this level, we can see the reflections within the culture of The Class System. These are the behaviors that the leaders within the culture all but force upon the masses, mostly because the leaders have long ago learned that this is the easiest way to control the behavior of the citizens. The third level is the direct result of the behaviors controlled by the cultural leaders. After a point these false truths and concepts become so ingrained within the culture that removing or changing these behaviors becomes a nearly impossible task. At this third stratum, the validity of the behavior has become established within the culture to a level that far surpasses common sense. The fourth and final level is that at which one or more corporate and/or governmental entities have established such a massive financial investment in the continuation of the particular behavior pattern that there are no limits as to what that body will do to ensure the continuation of the behavior. The single best example of this travesty in all of American history is the tobacco industry. The excruciatingly sad part of this fourth stratum is that it has permeated practically every industry in America. This seems to be the one truly devastating element of capitalism. No segment of American culture has escaped this unreality. Without The Class System, this whole corporate or governmental entity would be relatively powerless at selling something to the public that is so clearly wrong from a standpoint of common sense. The Class System is the tool used to control the behavior of the American citizenry in cases of irrational concepts, those concepts that have been created solely out of greed.
Reviewed by Dianne Salerni 7/13/08:
In The Last Horizon, Floyd M. Orr states what everybody knows, but nobody wants to admit: your physical attractiveness is the single most important factor for social success in America. Our society is celebrity-mad and consumer-driven. A constant barrage of advertisement tells us what to think, how to act, and what we want. And the majority of middle class Americans are content to stay in the herd, conforming to behaviors that were designed for us by a social system of pecking order which this author, calls The Class System. Not to be confused with an economic class system, this Class System is a social hierarchy based on a person’s family background, educational status, but most of all by physical attractiveness. You learn your place on the social ladder early, in childhood or adolescence, and once you are placed, your status will not change. Mr. Orr identifies four different classes in the System, each with its own distinguishing characteristics, typical behaviors, and personality types. He can even predict your political affiliation based on your “Class.” Mr. Orr calls his book “A Detailed Analysis of the Obvious.” He makes statements that are not politically correct, but true nonetheless. Once you read The Last Horizon, you can never un-read it. You will find yourself applying his Class System designations to people you know and suddenly understanding the social dynamics of your work place. Although the book claims that it is written for women who want to stop getting involved with jerks and narcissists, it is far more than a dating manual. It’s a biting commentary on the mores of our society.
Reviewed by Jennifer Holly MacDonald 12/29/07
I am buying your book from Amazon.ca but before I actually read it, I just want to say that I understand the courage it takes to see past the bullshit, make some sense out of it and then write it down on paper in hopes that others might get it too. I applaud that quality and appreciate it. Freedom from social illusions is the greatest freedom of all.
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