Cultural criticism clears a space in which we can stand back and survey a scene that we are not normally engaged in living in, not thinking about. In that space, we can function not merely as consumers of cultural pleasures and rewards but also as phenomenologists and diagnosticians of those pleasures and rewards.
–Susan Bordo, from the Introduction to Twilight Zones: The Hidden Life of Cultural Images From Plato to O.J. (1997)
Anna Hamilton | Writer 
Bordo has it well said. It always makes me smile when I see another voice positing on examination of culture, rather than consumerism of or passivity within it. It’s always very reassuring.