Beneath the headlines of the Sunday New York Times lies an untold story, patiently waiting to be edited into existence. Welcome to the remix culture.

It wasn't a mistake. That newspaper you received Friday was not some reprint from the late 90's. There was a moment last week when it seemed as if the 2004 presidential campaigns were going to have an actual debate about an important issue. Last weekend's orgy of revenge was only the latest episode in a bloodbath that has been going on for years.

Japanese women prefer a slimmer-fitting jean, and mature American women like pants that sit higher on the waist and are fuller in the hips. About one in 10 American adults are divorced or separated. We must try to achieve a level of public discourse on these issues that is simultaneously energetic and mutually respectful. These trends are just the most visible sign of how much the market ethic has come to dominate. To test this theory, stand at a cocktail party and whisper softly, "I just bought a flat-panel TV," and watch as admirers form a circle of testosterone and demand details.

What is new and troubling is the raw power that money exerts. Most mainstream companies don't like to discuss their lucrative dirty secret. The Google story is a reminder of how a slim technological advantage can reap enormous dividends in the new economy. But slim technological leads can be lost -- with devastating results.

"Everyone wants to believe in the brand." Investors should not be carried away by their nostalgia for the halcyon bubble days. They need regular infusions of managers and thinkers from other, more creative organizational cultures.

"Would you like to buy some Girl Scout crack?" Pressed to explain the changes, he said, "I'm not going to look in the rear-view mirror here." The brand, he said, "still has deep relevancy."

"At least in the sense that if you decide to obliterate it and fall in step with a lot of other people who have obliterated it, you may in fact end up looking like nothing else on earth. You may be blank."

If a crusading government tries to shut down the industry or mandate it, it won't work. The segment of the industry that refuses will simply go underground. A lot of not-so-secret factors are at play in this market. For whatever reason, electronics stores are obsessed with displaying nature shows. "The connections could be tight or loose," he added. The company's potential is enormous, but so are its risks.

Its management is, for the most part, young and inexperienced. "I'm not a Bible thumper. But if it weren't for sex, I wouldn't be in business."

"We put the fun in fundamentalism."

When he arrived, he was roundly criticized for his lack of experience. He is, for the most part, past that now. "You have to give them at least some idea of what your strategic plan is." People who know enough to pose those questions never have to ask this one: What's the big fuss? "This is what policy people do all the time."

Of course, it is hardly unique to America, or to movies. "But the fact that what might have been considered lurid, ghoulish or macabre even five seasons back is now part of sweeps week shows just how bent the culture has become." "In other words, you're going to think of what is most broadly appealing to the public."

"I wish I had waited until I was in my 30's," he said. "I would have decided who I am, what I want to be." "Everybody understands that if this field is not to die, new people have to be brought in. There's no getting around it. It needs new blood." "If you work hard enough in this nasty world, you can link just about anybody to anybody else.""

"New information has come to light," Mr. Cheney said. "Leave no dot unconnected." It's not just business as usual now. It's business only. Mr. Drexler had begun to chase the fickle teenage customer.

"They have a general equilibrium view of the world -- that what they do affects us all and then comes back to affect them." He tries to teach them to get over what he calls the "euphoria of their own ideas." He also likes to lift language directly from real estate ads to underscore the selling of the California dream.

Employees were told the same day. Many said they were surprised and worried about the news. The effort immediately aroused suspicions at the CIA and the DIA.

Embedded in the very idea of university are values the market does not honor: the belief in a community of scholars and not a confederacy of self-seekers; in the idea of openness and not ownership; and in the student as an acolyte whose preferences are to be formed, not a consumer whose preferences are to be satisfied. It is, at essence, about inclusion and alleviating suffering.

After that, it becomes a capricious free-for-all that leaves some of Washington's most recognized names stranded on the sidelines. Space and money taken by up-and-comers is lost for the old guard, who are popular with many. A dozen years ago, Russians overvalued all things Western, from cars to Barbie dolls. Now, it appears that many Russians have begun to sift more carefully through the Western invasions to pick out what they want, while discarding what they don't. That, in Russia, is a sign of real progress.

Russia is now overloaded with beauty contests. "It is a very interactive relationship between cultural icons and the plastic surgeons themselves." Decisions are, more and more, based on statistical models that leave little room for hunches about character and potential.

"There's so much societal pressure, media pressure ... All that contributes to the dissolution of relationships and marriage." "It's crazy how competitive it's become." It's a cutthroat competition where money matters more than ever. Teenagers from wealthy families are beating out middle- and working-class youngsters. They are more adept than their less well-heeled rivals at working the system.

Paradoxically, market-based concerns -- anxiety about the outsourcing of jobs -- may be the Sputnik crisis of this era, prompting changes in higher education that make it easier for teenagers who don't come from affluence to get the education needed to compete for those jobs.

Most experts say India is years ahead of countries like China. As the data from India show, the offshore outsourcing phenomenon may to some extent be self-correcting. Sometimes, they said, they were met with open hostility. What we have tried in the war of ideas has also fallen short.

There will be a tendency to overemphasize organizational fixes, an entirely different style, more research-driven, more efficiency-minded and more willing to experiment. They are fighting not just to avenge innocence, but to restore it. They win every time, and allow us to return to the bland safety of our civilized existences. The more important task is improving quality.

Such idealistic talk, so seemingly empowering back in 1999, seems embarrassingly naïve now that the party's ended, at least for the rest of us. It is often assumed that such entertainments reflect some deep, scary truth about the American character, if not about human nature. Contrary to the common conspiracy theories, the reality was more prosaic. We are a nation, they say, of follow-me consumerism. It is not clear anymore how much the center can slow things down.

As cable and digital television, along with the Internet, grow more popular, Americans get less information and entertainment from traditional over-the-air broadcasters. The result is that the FCC's content and ownership regulations are becoming increasingly irrelevant. You don't want pointers. You want to buy something awesome. You are the man! So do it. Get out there.

Women in the Midwest buy more large sizes, like 12 and 14, while women in San Francisco want 4's and 6's. "There are so many variables to talk about, so many technical specifications - like how many inches it is." When it comes to technology, consumers often must decide between buying when something is new and cool, or waiting a year or two until the engineers turn the schematics right side up and make the gadget actually work to its full potential.

"When it is all so overtly about appearance, personal identity becomes almost trivial." "It's all about the weight and the pressure." Do not be fooled. Objects in the Serengeti may be less clear in your family room than they appear in the store. "Sometimes it's a little spooky, but I'm awed by it."

"It twists your mind and plays games with you." "I feel like I'm going to the firing squad," she said.

Grooming new talent has taken on a new urgency because many would prefer to work for hipper, more lucrative outlets, like television. "He's found a way to reduce it to absolute simplicity." "Just to find it is exciting."

"We were stunned that we couldn't find any mention of it in the CIA's finished reports." It is a battle not only of bombs and bullets, but chiefly of ideas. It is a war that we are losing.

Unlike rock videos, which often focus on a single female love object, hip-hop videos tend to feature women in dense, anonymous swarms. Which are, at the moment, neither safe nor bland, which may be why we require increasingly strong doses of purgative violence. "We were out of balance. We're more disciplined now."

If we learn the right lessons, it may also prove to be an essential part of our future victory ... But how do we select the right lessons to learn? "It's bumpy. It's hard. And it isn't going to be a straight path." While some structural changes are necessary, they are a small part of the solution. Fashioning a comprehensive strategy to win the battle of ideas should be given as much attention as any other aspect of the war. The real danger is when the architects of war refuse to rethink bad assumptions.

"It was very much a cookie-cutter approach." Duped themselves, they duped Americans into thinking it would be easy. "Can they articulate where they're strong and where they're weak? Just to say we know more than you, that smacks of arrogance." "I questioned some of the things that I saw." "They did point out some individual facts that we hadn't focused on, but I don't think anything they briefed to us fundamentally changed our bottom line on the issue."

This is a lot to ask, and it seems to demand a perpetual escalation of mayhem, and ever more indifference to the norms of civilization. We take a positive delight in seeing those norms trashed, perhaps because we hate to admit that they are all the protection we have. At best, these charges are rather sloppy interpretations. At worst, they are flat wrong. All are sad examples.

These television shows seem to signal that the herd mentality has reached alarming new levels. "It's very cookie-cutter." Part of the appeal of "The Sopranos" is surely the fantasy that there is, tucked away in our consumerist, suburban midst, a subculture regulated by elaborate rituals of honor and respect and ruled by brutal laws of its own devising.