#society

our triumphant age of plenty is riddled with darker feelings of doubt, cynicism, distrust, boredom and a strange kind of emptiness ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#age

Everyone knows history is written by the winners, but that cliche misses a crucial detail: Over time, the winners are always the progressives. Conservatism can only win in the short term, because society cannot stop evolving (and social evolution inevitably dovetails with the agenda of those who see change as an abstract positive). It might take seventy years, but it always happens eventually. Serious historians are, almost without exception, self-styled progressives. Radical views--even the awful ones--improve with age. ↗

— Chuck Klosterman

#conservatives #evolution #historians #history #progressive

A cultural fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience. ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#body-image #culture #eating-disorders #images #society

The anarch differs from the anarchist in that he has a very pronounced sense of the rules. Insofar as and to the extent that he observes them, he feels exempt from thinking. This is consistent with normal behavior: everyone who boards a train rolls over bridges and through tunnels that engineers have devised for him and on which a hundred thousand hands have labored. This does not darken the passenger’s mood; settling in comfortably, he buries himself in his newspaper, has breakfast, or thinks about his business. Likewise, the anarch – except that he always remains aware of that relationship, never losing sight of his main theme, freedom, that which also flies outside, past hill and dale. He can get away at any time, not just from the train, but also from any demand made on him by state, society, or church, and also from existence. ↗

— Ernst Jünger

#anarchism #ernst-jünger #freedom #society #business

When society involves the anarch in a conflict which in which he does not participate inwardly, it challenges him to launch an opposition. He will try to turn the lever with which society moves him. Society is then at his disposal, say, as a stage for grand spectacles that are devised for him. Everything changes; the fetter becomes fascinating, danger an adventure, a suspenseful task. ↗

— Ernst Jünger

#ernst-jünger #freedom #society #change

Ares always reemerges from the chaos. It will never go away. Athenian civilization defends itself from the forces of Ares with metis, or technology. Technology is built on science. Science is like the alchemists' uroburos, continually eating its own tail. The process of science doesn't work unless young scientists have the freedom to attack and tear down old dogmas, to engage in an ongoing Titanomachia. Science flourishes where art and free speech flourish. ↗

— Neal Stephenson

#society #war #art

The society Shakespeare knew was heading for tremendous change, and he seems to have recognized that and written about it in a coded way. I understand those codes, I think. ↗

— Vanessa Redgrave

#change #coded #codes #heading #i

In our society leaving baby with Daddy is just one step above leaving the kids to be raised by wolves or apes. ↗

— Al Roker

#above #baby #daddy #just #just one

My vision is to have an independent Kosovo, democratic, with a politically tolerant society and with a solid economy, integrated into the EU, the NATO and to continue with our good relations with the USA. ↗

— Ibrahim Rugova

#democratic #economy #eu #good #independent

When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him. ↗

— Bayard Rustin

#act #being #confers #dignity #him