I keep coming back to how China Miéville described so much of what's wrong with the present-day U.S. in an aside from _Perdido Street Station_.

One of the major characters, Yagharek, is a gerudo who translates his un-title as "too-abstract individualist"—someone unwilling or unable to accept restriction of their own liberties in order for others to have an equal degree of liberty. Applicability to the reactionary side of the political spectrum is obvious, but the attitude and stances of excessively-abstract individualism also seem to have poisoned our progressive and (various) leftist movements.

Damn if I know what to do about it. I'm just in awe of an author tossing that kind of observation-from-uncommon-perspective into a story as almost a throwaway line.