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Kindness and friendliness become aspects of personalized service or of public relations of big firms, rationalized to further the sale of something. With anonymous insincerity, the Successful Person thus makes an instrument of his own appearance and personality.

— C. Wright Mills

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Kindness and friendliness become aspects of personalized service or of public relations of big firms, rationalized to further the sale of something. With anonymous insincerity, the Successful Person thus makes an instrument of his own appearance and personality." in the context of "" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
C. Wright Mills

About C. Wright Mills

C. Wright Mills (August 28, 1916 – March 20, 1962) was an American sociologist, best remembered for studying the structure of power in the U.S. in his book The Power Elite. Mills was concerned with the responsibilities of intellectuals in post-World War II society. He advocated relevance and engagement over disinterested academic observation as a "public intelligence apparatus" in challenging the policies of the institutional elites in the "Three" (the economic, political and military).