Quotes by Social Critics - Page 2

A celebrity is an object that the media manufactures today, just so they have a subject tomorrow.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Sun glasses are the unofficial celebrities’ uniform.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Though you can get smart from reading everything that a smart person writes, you cannot get famous from reading about everything that a famous person does or is said to have done.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Hypocrisy is when you get mad at a friend for telling their other friend a secret that your other friend told you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Do not treat others as you would not like to be treated' frees one from hypocrisy. 'Treat others as you would like to be treated' enslaves one with insincerity.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Of course all such conclusions about appropriate actions against the rich and powerful are based on a fundamental flaw: This is us, and that is them. This crucial principle, deeply embedded in Western culture, suffices to undermine even the most precise analogy and the most impeccable reasoning.
Noam Chomsky
When I was in high school I asked myself at one point: "Why do I care if my high school's team wins the football game? I don't know anybody on the team, they have nothing to do with me... why am I here and applaud? It does not make any sense." But the point is, it does make sense: It's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority and group cohesion behind leadership elements. In fact it's training in irrational jingoism. That's also a feature of competitive sports.
Noam Chomsky
I sometimes turn on the radio and I find very often that what I'm listening to is a discussion of sports. These are telephone conversations. People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it's plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that. People know a tremendous amount. They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding. On the other hand, when I hear people talk about, say, international affairs or domestic problems, it's at a level of superficiality that's beyond belief.
Noam Chomsky
The ritual denunciation of the so-called ‘socialist’ states is replete with distortions and often outright lies.
Noam Chomsky
Social networking platforms drove man closer to those in neighboring continents, while driving him further apart from those in his neighborhood.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Thou shalt not tweet to be retweeted.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Thou shalt not unfollow someone, merely because they stopped following you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Thou shalt not follow someone, merely because they are following you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Thanks to the internet, you can provoke thoughts of those in mansions, from the uncomfortableness of your shack.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Thou shalt not think that thou be a leader, merely because thee be having more than 0 followers.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
People who talk too much are tiresome, especially those who are not informative, thought-provoking, or funny.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Once born, how long a man will live matters. Once dead, how long he has lived doesn’t.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To begin with, we have to be more clear about what we mean by patriotic feelings. For a time when I was in high school, I cheered for the school athletic teams. That's a form of patriotism — group loyalty. It can take pernicious forms, but in itself it can be quite harmless, maybe even positive. At the national level, what "patriotism" means depends on how we view the society. Those with deep totalitarian commitments identify the state with the society, its people, and its culture. Therefore those who criticized the policies of the Kremlin under Stalin were condemned as "anti-Soviet" or "hating Russia". For their counterparts in the West, those who criticize the policies of the US government are "anti-American" and "hate America"; those are the standard terms used by intellectual opinion, including left-liberal segments, so deeply committed to their totalitarian instincts that they cannot even recognize them, let alone understand their disgraceful history, tracing to the origins of recorded history in interesting ways. For the totalitarian, "patriotism" means support for the state and its policies, perhaps with twitters of protest on grounds that they might fail or cost us too much. For those whose instincts are democratic rather than totalitarian, "patriotism" means commitment to the welfare and improvement of the society, its people, its culture. That's a natural sentiment and one that can be quite positive. It's one all serious activists share, I presume; otherwise why take the trouble to do what we do? But the kind of "patriotism" fostered by totalitarian societies and military dictatorships, and internalized as second nature by much of intellectual opinion in more free societies, is one of the worst maladies of human history, and will probably do us all in before too long.With regard to the US, I think we find a mix. Every effort is made by power and doctrinal systems to stir up the more dangerous and destructive forms of "patriotism"; every effort is made by people committed to peace and justice to organize and encourage the beneficial kinds. It's a constant struggle. When people are frightened, the more dangerous kinds tend to emerge, and people huddle under the wings of power. Whatever the reasons may be, by comparative standards the US has been a very frightened country for a long time, on many dimensions. Quite commonly in history, such fears have been fanned by unscrupulous leaders, seeking to implement their own agendas. These are commonly harmful to the general population, which has to be disciplined in some manner: the classic device is to stimulate fear of awesome enemies concocted for the purpose, usually with some shreds of realism, required even for the most vulgar forms of propaganda. Germany was the pride of Western civilization 70 years ago, but most Germans were whipped to presumably genuine fear of the Czech dagger pointed at the heart of Germany (is that crazier than the Nicaraguan or Grenadan dagger pointed at the heart of the US, conjured up by the people now playing the same game today?), the Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy aimed at destroying the Aryan race and the civilization that Germany had inherited from Greece, etc.That's only the beginning. A lot is at stake.
Noam Chomsky
People who get offended by your not saying 'Thank you!' … after they’ve paid you a compliment were merely desperate to be thanked.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A historian is a risk-terrified prophet.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
It's all about money, not freedom. You think you're free? Try going somewhere without money.
Bill Hicks
What 'primitive' men called gossip, 'civilized' men call news.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A live broke man is 'luckier' than a dead rich man.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Worry is to human beings … what a condom is to a man with erectile dysfunction.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Being in a hurry is the father of stress and worry.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Chances are that whatever that you are worried about—be it a person or a thing—isn’t worried about you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The religious worry about life after death at the expense of life before death.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Time limps when you are not having fun.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.
Noam Chomsky
A soldier is a killer painted hero.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To a man with an internet connection, every thought and every movement sounds like a tweet or status update.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We sometimes take photos (or record a video) so that we can later see what was happening while we were busy taking photos (or recording a video).
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Life punishes those who have things in abundance by making them worry about petty things like: what to wear, or, which car to drive.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
You know a man is interesting when you forget to notice how expensive — or cheap — his clothes are.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I am obsessed with not being obsessed with acquiring material things.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Most employees don’t really want to be highly-paid; they just want to earn more than their peers, and, more importantly, more than their neighbours.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Nothing humbles a rich man better than a poor man that isn’t willing to do ‘anything’ for money.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Don’t obsess over having the 'latest' version of a product. For there was a time that the previous version was the latest.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Those who say that money can’t buy one love make it sound as if love can buy one money.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Man would rather be loved for what he has, than be hated for what he lacks.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Tomorrow is like 'there.' Once you get 'there,' it is called 'here.' So, technically, life is a set of Todays.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A push-up bra is to a woman’s chest … what 'breathing-in' is to a man’s stomach.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Reality is a hallucination shared by most sane men.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To lose weight, spend time at the gym. To appear like you’ve lost weight, spend time with people who are bigger than you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Twitter gives people an illusionary sense of leadership.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Facebook gives people an illusory sense of being LIKED.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
These young-marrying, contemporaries or juniors of the Beat Generation, have often expressed themselves as follows: "My highest aim in life is to achieve a normal healthy marriage and raise healthy [non-neurotic] children." On the face of it, this remark is preposterous. What was always taken as a usual and advantageous life-condition for work in the world and the service of God, is now regarded as an heroic goal to be striven for. Yet we see that it is a hard goal to achieve against the modern obstacles. Also it is a real goal, with objective problems that a man can work at personally, and take responsibility for, and make decisions about—unlike the interpersonal relations of the corporation, or the routine of the factory job for which the worker couldn't care less.But now, suppose the young man is achieving this goal: he has the wife, the small kids, the suburban home, and the labor-saving domestic devices. How is it that it is the same man who uniformly asserts that he is in a Rat Race? Either the goal does not justify itself, or indeed he is not really achieving it. Perhaps the truth is, if marriage and children are the goal, a man cannot really achieve it. It is not easy to conceive of a strong husband and father who does not justified in his work and independent in the world. Correspondingly, his wife feels justified in the small children, but does she have a man, do the children have a father, if he is running a Rat Race? Into what world do the small children grow up in such a home?
Paul Goodman
*Nothing is free* asserts two things. Both assertions are true.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A paparazzi is merely an extremely nosy nobody with a camera—and bills to pay.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The media made the masses to find not-so-skinny women appear not-so-beautiful … in the eyes of the remote holder.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A propaganda model has a certain initial plausibility on guided free-market assumptions that are not particularly controversial. In essence, the private media are major corporations selling a product (readers and audiences) to other businesses (advertisers). The national media typically target and serve elite opinion, groups that, on the one hand, provide an optimal “profile” for advertising purposes, and, on the other, play a role in decision-making in the private and public spheres. The national media would be failing to meet their elite audience’s needs if they did not present a tolerably realistic portrayal of the world. But their “societal purpose” also requires that the media’s interpretation of the world reflect the interests and concerns of the sellers, the buyers, and the governmental and private institutions dominated by these groups.
Noam Chomsky
Those who occupy managerial positions in the media, or gain status within them as commentators, belong to the same privileged elites, and might be expected to share the perceptions, aspirations, and attitudes of their associates, reflecting their own class interests as well. Journalists entering the system are unlikely to make their way unless they conform to these ideological pressures, generally by internalizing the values; it is not easy to say one thing and believe another, and those who fail to conform will tend to be weeded out by familiar mechanisms.
Noam Chomsky
To be called insane: challenge convention. To be called possessed: challenge religion.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
People who smoke would have probably been regarded as fools or insane, if only a percentage of people who smoke smoked.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Chomie' is South African homosexual men’s unofficial name.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Gay men are guardians of the masculine impulse. To have anonymous sex in a dark alleyway is to pay homage to the dream of male freedom. The unknown stranger is a wandering pagan god. The altar, as in pre-history, is anywhere you kneel.
Camille Paglia
A genius is a grownup that remained a kid.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Though man needs to live to believe, he does not need to believe to live.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Beliefs are conclusions reached by men who are lazy to think for themselves.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Religion makes people kill each other. Science supplies them with weapons.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana