"The couch potato is the role model for the empty self, and there can be
no doubt that Americans are becoming increasingly passive in their
approach to life. We let other people do our living and thinking for
us: The pastor studies the Bible for us, the news media does our
political thinking for us, and we let our favorite sports team
exercise, struggle, and win for us. From watching television to
listening to sermons, our primary agenda is to be amused and
entertained. Holidays have become vacations. Historically, a holiday
was a "holy day," an intrinsically valuable, special, active change of
pace in which, through proactive play and recreation, you refreshed
your soul. A vacation is a "vacating"-even the language is passive-in
order to let someone else amuse you. The passive individual is a self
in search of pleasure and consumer goods provided by others. Such an
individual increasingly becomes a shriveled self with less and less
ability to be proactive and take control of life."
- J.P. Moreland,
The Lost Virtue of Happiness, 2006
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