#society

Across the centuries the moral systems from medival chivalry to Bruce Springsteen love anthems have worked the same basic way. They take immediate selfish interests and enmesh them within transcendent, spiritual meanings. Love becomes a holy cause, an act of self-sacrifice and selfless commitment. But texting and the utilitarian mind-set are naturally corrosive toward poetry and imagination. A coat of ironic detachment is required for anyone who hopes to withstand the brutal feedback of the marketplace. In today's world, the choice of a Prius can be a more sanctified act than the choice of an erotic partner. This does not mean that young people today are worse or shallower than young people in the past. It does mean they get less help. People once lived within a pattern of being, which educated the emotions, guided the temporary toward the permanent and linked everyday urges to higher things. The accumulated wisdom of the community steered couples as they tried to earn each other's commitment. Today there are fewer norms that guide that way. Today's technology seems to threaten the sort of recurring and stable reciprocity that is the building block of trust. ↗

— David Brooks

#poetry #society #education

In essence I find that the foundation of modern conservatism is driven by a clinging to God in fear of the world, whereas the foundation of modern liberalism is a clinging to the world in fear of God; albeit, the true foundation should be one's clinging to God in fear of God. ↗

— Criss Jami

#belief #clinging #conservatism #conservative #essence

From the newsstands a dozen models smiled up at her from a dozen magazine covers, smiled in thin-faced, high-cheekboned agreement to Kessa's new discovery. They knew the secret too. They knew thin was good, thin was strong; thin was safe. ↗

— Steven Levenkron

#eating-disorders #happy #models #skinny #society

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens. ↗

— Alexis de Tocqueville

#democratic #democratic society #functions #health #may

Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man ↗

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#politics #society #political-philosophy

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. ↗

— John Rawls

#individuals #justice #liberalism #philosophy #social-institutions

When we try to push the envelope, there are certain sectors of society that say this is a Zionist plot to sort of destabilize our country, or this is an American agenda. ↗

— Abdallah II

#american #certain #country #envelope #our

The platform of an Ethical Society is itself the altar; the address must be the fire that burns thereon. ↗

— Felix Adler

#altar #burns #ethical #fire #itself

The Border Ballads, for instance, and the Robin Hood Ballads, clearly suppose a state of society which is nothing but a very circumscribed and not very important heroic age. ↗

— Lascelles Abercrombie

#ballads #border #clearly #heroic #hood

Stories in which the destruction of society occurs are explorations of social fears and issues that filmmakers, novelists, playwrights, painters have been examining for a long time. ↗

— J. J. Abrams

#destruction #examining #fears #filmmakers #issues