Quotes by Social Critics - Page 7

My thought is that the average adjusted boy is, if anything, more humanly wasted than the disaffected. So let us go on to discuss his stupidity, his lack of patriotism, his sexual confusion, and his lack of faith.
Paul Goodman
If heaven really exists: then heaven is the job, hell is unemployment, while life is merely an interview.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
High heels are a short (theist) woman's (subconscious) way of telling God to go to hell … in public.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
As useful as an unhappy artist. As useless as a happy philosopher.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Clothes are a homeless man’s home.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To a homeless man, home is literally where the heart is.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We’re beings toward death, we’re … two-legged, linguistically-conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose body will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms.
Cornel West
We’re beings towards death, we’re featherless two-legged linguistically conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose bodies will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms. That’s us.
Cornel West
To a fireman, wind is a curse. To a sailor, wind is a blessing.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To become richer, earn more. To appear richer, move into a poorer neighborhood.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The historian, like everyone else, is forever trapped in the egocentric predicament, and 'presentism' is his original sin.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Spam is a waste of the receivers’ time, and, a waste of the sender’s optimism.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A genius is a grown-up that did not grow up.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
It is a sign of intellectual maturity to always crawl to conclusions.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To be humble is to be so sure of one's self and one's mission that one can forego calling excessive attention to one's self and status. And, even more pointedly, to be humble is to revel in the accomplishments or potentials of others -- especially those with whom one identifies and to whom one is linked organically.
Cornel West
A newspaper is an oversized book with adverts and an expiry date.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The name of a great writer is usually bigger than the title of his book. Both literally and figuratively.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
If human beings were really progressive creatures, then all boys would be smarter, healthier, and, wealthier, than their grandfathers.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
As long as you're scared you're on the plantation.
Cornel West
I am against justice … whenever it is carried out by a mob.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
In a society where women are truly equal to men, a kid bred by a theist mother and an atheist father is born an agnostic. In a patriarchal society, the kid is automatically an atheist.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
If heaven really exists: then, technically, living is an activity that believers keep themselves busy with — while they wait for their death.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Religion is a non-alcoholic man's alcohol. Alcohol is a non-religious man's religion.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Intellect is the virtue of ignoring one’s emotions’ attempt to contaminate one’s opinions.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Charisma is the numinous aura around a narcissistic personality. It flows outward from a simplicity or unity of being and a composure and controlled vitality. There is gracious accommodation, yet commanding impersonality. Charisma is the radiance produced by the interaction of male and female elements in a gifted personality. The charismatic woman has a masculine force and severity. The charismatic man has an entrancing female beauty. Both are hot and cold, glowing with presexual self love.
Camille Paglia
Because of the power that we have given money: The government would rather have taxpayers who do not vote, than voters who do not pay tax.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
It is easier to seize wealth than to produce it, and as long as the State makes the seizure of wealth a matter of legalized privilege, so long will the squabble for that privilege go on.
Albert Jay Nock
In his book Politics, which is the foundation of the study of political systems, and very interesting, Aristotle talked mainly about Athens. But he studied various political systems - oligarchy, monarchy - and didn't like any of the particularly. He said democracy is probably the best system, but it has problems, and he was concerned with the problems. One problem that he was concerned with is quite striking because it runs right up to the present. He pointed out that in a democracy, if the people - people didn't mean people, it meant freemen, not slaves, not women - had the right to vote, the poor would be the majority, and they would use their voting power to take away property from the rich, which wouldn't be fair, so we have to prevent this.James Madison made the same pint, but his model was England. He said if freemen had democracy, then the poor farmers would insist on taking property from the rich. They would carry out what we these days call land reform. and that's unacceptable. Aristotle and Madison faced the same problem but made the opposite decisions. Aristotle concluded that we should reduce ineqality so the poor wouldn't take property from the rich. And he actually propsed a visin for a city that would put in pace what we today call welfare-state programs, common meals, other support systems. That would reduce inequality, and with it the problem of the poor taking property from the rich. Madison's decision was the opposite. We should reduce democracy so the poor won't be able to get together to do this.If you look at the design of the U.S. constitutional system, it followed Madison's approach. The Madisonian system placed power in the hands of the Senate. The executive in those days was more or less an administrator, not like today. The Senate consisted of "the wealth of the nation," those who had sympathy for property owners and their rights. That's where power should be. The Senate, remember, wasn't elected. It was picked by legislatures, who were themselves very much subject to control by the rich and the powerful. The House, which was closer to the population, had much less power. And there were all sorts of devices to keep people from participation too much - voting restrictions and property restrictions. The idea was to prevent the threat of democracy. This goal continues right to the present. It has taken different forms, but the aim remains the same.
Noam Chomsky
I wonder how many such men in America would know that Communism, the New Deal, Fascism, Nazism, are merely so-many trade-names for collectivist Statism, like the trade-names for tooth-pastes which are all exactly alike except for the flavouring.
Albert Jay Nock
In proportion as you give the state power to do things for you, you give it power to do things to you.
Albert Jay Nock
There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth; this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political means.
Albert Jay Nock
[W]e have a democracy that uses free elections to put in place known obstructionists, and a media that disproportionately gives a forum to economically driven ideology over sound science.
Noam Chomsky
Corporations barely pay taxes. The corporate tax rate is already very low, but corporations have worked out an array of complicated techniques so they often don't have to pay taxes at all... The scale of sheer robbery by corporate power is enormous.
Noam Chomsky
Reigning doctrines are often called a "double standard".The term is misleading.It is more accurate to describe them as a single standard,clear and unmistakable,the standard that Adam Smith called the "vile maxim of the masters of mankind: ...All for ourselves,and nothing for other people." Much has changed since his day,but the vile maxim flourishes.
Noam Chomsky
If you can't say "Fuck" you can't say, "Fuck the government.
Lenny Bruce
Graphic designers judge a cover by its book.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The twentieth-century conservative is concerned, first of all, for the regeneration of the spirit and character – with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at its highest.
Russell Kirk
If ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt. If doubt is eventually justified, we were believing what clearly was not worth believing. But if doubt is answered, our faith has grown stronger. It knows God more certainly and it can enjoy God more deeply.
Os Guinness
He who says that someone isn’t himself is a victim of statistics.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
An ID number is only there to 'identify' human beings. Use it to assume people’s intellect or wisdom at your own risk.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
...the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon.
Noam Chomsky
Some kid asked what a dilemma is. And I replied: When a starving man has to choose between a plate of food, and, a roll of toilet paper.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Civilization transformed man from a food gatherer to a gatherer of pieces of paper: diplomas, employment contracts, money, etc.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
12% of employees eat because they are hungry. 88% of employees eat because it is 1 o’clock.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A healthy man watched what he ate. An intelligent man watched what he watched.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Eating a salad (in public) is an overweight person’s attempt to appear in control.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Never judge the deeds of a starving man while you’re on a full tummy.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
For good health, watch what you eat. For a good head, watch what you watch.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Sustainability is best illustrated by those who sell food … just so they afford something to eat.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Eating healthy is expensive. Not eating healthy is expensive. One dents your pocket. The other dents your health.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Air freshener is man’s pitiful attempt to have his food smell as good, after digestion, as they did, before ingestion.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Work is a vehicle with which man chases some fleeting destination called a full tummy.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Thanks to his salary, an employee is free to eat whatever, wherever. However, because of his job, he is not free to eat whenever.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I used to think that size does not count, until I realized that most people either find other people’s faeces more disgusting than a bird’s droppings, or they do not find the latter disgusting at all.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The three of us ate a fine supper of grilled trout with sorrel cream sauce, and red potatoes out of Britney's old garden behind the ruins of the Watling place, and watercress sautéed in butter for hardly a moment with a dash of vinegar, and cream custard with wild blackberries for dessert.
James Howard Kunstler
To hear how much of a great human being you were — even if you really weren’t — open your ears at your funeral.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Not all truths hurt. And not all that is hurtful is truthful.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To be enslaved then, you needed to be ignorant. To be enslaved today, you need to be knowledgeable.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A straight face is an ignorant man’s attempt to appear knowledgeable.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
How much man likes or hates a person or a thing is dependent on how much he knows or does not know about the person or the thing.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana