Browsing Quotes With Tag: society (40)
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The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from its birth, and bears in itself the causes of its destruction.
Speaker: RousseauSource: Du Contrat SocialPosted: 01 Mar 2010 at 5:29 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
I don’t know what it is for me, but I sometimes feel as if I’m standing on a beach and there are waves smothering me – waves of advertisements for shit I don’t need, of profiles of people who’ve never done anything except be famous, of politicians mouthing platitudes, of hundred of TV channels showing nothing.
Speaker: Michael KamberSource: Shooting the TruthPosted: 26 Dec 2009 at 11:03 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
I don’t know what it is for me, but I sometimes feel as if I’m standing on a beach and there are waves smothering me – waves of advertisements for shit I don’t need, of profiles of people who’ve never done anything except be famous, of politicians mouthing platitudes, of hundred of TV channels showing nothing.
Speaker: Michael KamberSource: Shooting the TruthPosted: 26 Dec 2009 at 11:01 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
She always wanted to have some Native American blood in her, just as everyone else does, because with that blood, she thought, stupidly, would come nobility, as would excuses to do things the wrong way, or not do them at all, or do anything she wanted. But instead she is Irish or possibly even Welsh but not in any tangible sense, and thus born without any sorrow in the lives of her recent ancestors, and so she had to smile gratefully and create good things from scratch or perhaps just save people from skin disease.
Speaker: Dave EggersSource: How We Are HungryPosted: 26 Nov 2009 at 8:48 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Regardless of how many people still describe themselves as “Christian” in census surveys, we live in a primarily agnostic culture. Intellectually, agnosticism makes more sense. But the downside is that when people lose their convictions about the existence of God and Satan, they are less able to have personal perspectives on what’s right and what’s wrong. They are more open-minded about old taboos, but they’re also less able to see what’s obvious (and therefore susceptible to propaganda).
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Fargo Rock CityPosted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:26 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
It’s one thing to realize that something is goofy, but it’s quite another to suggest that goofiness disqualifies its significance. If anything, it expands the significance, because the product becomes accessible to a wider audience (and to the kind of audience who would never look for symbolism on its own).
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Fargo Rock CityPosted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:15 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The single biggest influence on our lives was the inescapable sameness of everything, which is probably true for most generations.
Jefferson Morely makes a brilliant point about inflation in his 1988 essay “Twentysomething”: “For us, everything seemed normal. I remember wondering why people were surprised that prices were going up. I thought, That’s what prices did.” Consider that those sentiments come from a guy who was already in high school during Watergate – roughly the same year I was born. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ve ever been legitimately shocked by anything, even as a third-grader in 1981. That was the year John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan, and I wasn’t surprised at all (in fact, it seemed to me that presidential assassinations didn’t happen nearly as often as one would expect). From what I could tell, the world has always been a deeply underwhelming place; my generation inherited this paradigm, and it was perfectly fine with me (both then and now).Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Fargo Rock CityPosted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:14 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Commercial success does not legitimize musical consequence, but it does legitimize cultural consequence.
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Fargo Rock CityPosted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:06 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Capitalism is about turning luxuries into necessities.
Speaker: Andrew CarnegiePosted: 05 Nov 2009 at 7:16 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
And what was money? It was merely a temptation to commit wrong. Rich people weren’t happy. They were generally miserable and usually confused. Most of the time they didn’t even realize they were rich; almost without exception, they wrongly viewed themselves as middle-class. But there’s no such thing as middle-class. The middle class does not exist. If you believe you are part of the middle class, it just means you’re rich and insecure or poor and misinformed.
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Downtown OwlPosted: 05 Nov 2009 at 7:03 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Society is so confused, Mitch thought. Everyone wanted to become the person they were already pretending to be.
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Downtown OwlPosted: 05 Nov 2009 at 6:54 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
This is ultimately what I like about the Born-Again Lifestyle: Even though I see fundamentalist Christians as wild-eyed maniacs, I respect their verve. They are probably the only people openly fighting against America’s insipid Oprah Culture – the pervasive belief system that insists everyone’s perspective is valid and that no one can be judged. As far as I can tell, most people I know are like me; most of the people I know are bad people (or they’re good people, but they consciously choose to do bad things). We deserve to be judged.
I realize that liberals and libertarians and Michael Stipe are always quick to quote the Bible when you say something like that, and they’ll tell you, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” And that’s a solid retort for just about anything, really. But the thing with born agains is that they want to be judged. They can’t fucking wait. That’s why they’re cool.Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa PuffsPosted: 19 Sep 2009 at 9:31 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
For the past twenty-five years, culture has been obsessed with making males and females more alike, and that’s fine. Maybe it’s even enlightened. But what I’ve noticed – at least among young people – is that this convergence has mostly just prompted females to adopt the worst qualities of men. It’s like girls are trying to attain equality by becoming equally shallow and selfish. Whenever I see TV shows like Fox’s defunct Ally McBeal or HBO’s Sex and the City, I find myself perplexed as to how this is sometimes viewed as an “advancement” for feminism; it seems to imply that it’s empowering for women to think like all of the stupidest men I know (myself included).
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa PuffsPosted: 19 Sep 2009 at 5:11 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Coolness is always a bear market.
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa PuffsPosted: 17 Sep 2009 at 7:17 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The tangible effect of pornography is roughly the same as the tangible effect of Ozzy Osbourne’s music on stoned Midwestern teenagers: It prompts a small faction of idiots to consider idiotic impulses, which is why we have the word 'idiocy.’
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa PuffsPosted: 17 Sep 2009 at 7:15 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Being interesting has been replaced by being identifiable.
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa PuffsPosted: 17 Sep 2009 at 5:14 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Perhaps more than anything else, this is the ultimate accomplishment of The Real World: It has validated the merits of having a one-dimensional personality. In fact, it has made that kind of persona desirable, because other one-dimensional personalities can more easily understand you.
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa PuffsPosted: 17 Sep 2009 at 5:11 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The most violent element in society is ignorance.
Speaker: Emma GoldmanPosted: 28 Jul 2009 at 11:32 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
To be poor, ugly and, moreover, intelligent, condemns one, in our society, to a dark and disillusioned life, a condition one ought to accept at an early age. To beauty, all is forgiven, even vulgarity. Intelligence no longer seems an adequate compensation for things – some sort of balancing of the scales offered by nature to those less favored among her children – no, it is a superfluous plaything that exists only to enhance the value of a jewel. As for ugliness, it is guilty from the start, and I was doomed by my tragic destiny to suffer all the more, for I was hardly stupid.
Speaker: Muriel BarberySource: the Elegance of the HedgehogPosted: 23 Jun 2009 at 7:45 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
I am wondering what would have happened to me if some fluent talker had converted me to the theory of the eight-hour day and convinced me that it was not fair to my fellow workers to put forth my best efforts in my work… If my life had been made up of eight-hour days I do not believe I could have accomplished a great deal.
Speaker: Thomas EdisonPosted: 21 Aug 2008 at 3:34 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment!