rends, however, for, as Slater points out, childhood in America is usually marked not by competitiveness, but rather by cooperation. This means that in most individuals there is a hidden sense that something is wrong with such self-interest and isolation. However, to date, this early emphasis on community has remained buried and causes only a vague sense of guilt. Slater says that when that buried sense of human interdependence is touched by "radical challenges to our society," we experience a "possibility [for that interdependence] that's thrilling but terrifying" (30).
One of the ways American society keeps this hidden longing for interdependence at bay is by practicing the "toilet assumption." Slater means by this the prevailing fantasy in American culture which holds that "unwanted matter, unwanted difficulties, unwanted complexities and obstacles will disappear if they're removed from our immediate field of visio
...