"In the age of icons, major iconic figures play an ever-increasing role in political life. In emotionally charged and contradictory ways, contemporary icons convey boundless faith in a better world under construction while simultaneously embracing the status quo, lashing out at the ills of global capitalism, while at the same time representing and defending its triumphant possibilities and inevitable forward march. Today's icons offer the promise of limitless change without changing the limits of existing society, which is central to their popularity as well as to their defining contradiction: Western icons conduct widely celebrated superhuman feats with only modest, pragmatic outcomes."