Chapter 5 - Section I-III Summary and Analysis

In chapter five, Boorstin asserts that we have made a shift from moral value to commercial or monetary value. He states, "God himself becomes not a power but an image." He continues into section I and discusses the abundance of images and outlines their particular characteristics. The first characteristic of the image is that it is "synthetic". This means that it does not arrive spontaneously, it is created for a particular purpose. The second aspect of the image is that it is "believable". The image must "overshadow" the thing from which it was derived, but must not exceed the limits of credulity.

The third aspect of the image is that it is "passive". Boorstin suggests that the image acts as a concrete reality that already exists as opposed to being a work in progress. There...