A cultural critic advocates for embracing imbalance, obsession and gluttony across all aspects of life, contending that our contemporary culture's misguided pursuit of equality in love and art, coupled with economic disparities, has left us spiritually impoverished. In a healthy culture, Rothfeld argues, economic security allows for wild aesthetic experimentation and excess; alas, in the contemporary Anglophone West, we’ve got it flipped. The gap between rich and poor, privileged and oppressed, yawns hideously wide, while we stagnate in a cultural equality that imposes restraint.