We live in a society basted in self-regard, our moralists tell us: fat and dozy on the lion's share of the world's resources, polluting the seas and burning fossil fuels, we gaze in loving torpor at our own reflection, and the gnat-bite of recession barely disturbs our narcissistic trance. More than any generation before us, we command the resources for self-realisation - a "life well lived", as Keith Thomas puts it. But do we want to be artists, philosophers, pioneers of the natural sciences? No: we want to be celebrities. We dream of instant, global fame. We expect it to enrich us, gratify us, but are less concerned that it outlast us. Once, priorities were different.
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