Culture Quotes - Page 12

We -- the industrialized, technologized world -- have never been richer. And yet to an extraordinary extent we in the West continue to inhabit a moral and cultural universe shaped by the hedonistic imperatives and radical ideals of the Sixties. Culturally, morally the world we inhabit is increasingly a trash world: addicted to sensation, besieged everywhere by the cacophonous, mind-numbing din of rock music, saturated with pornography, in thrall to the lowest common denominator wherever questions of taste, manners or intellectual delicacy are concerned. Marwick was right: 'The cultural revolution, in short, had continuous, uninterrupted, and lasting consequences'.

Most of my important lessons about life have come from recognizing how others from a different culture view things.

Edgar H. Schein

Certain portions of the earth, escaping utter destruction, become the seedbeds for replenishing the human race, and so it happens that on a world that is not young there are young populations having no culture, whose traditions were swept away in a debacle; they wander over the earth and gradually put aside the roughness of a nomadic existence and by natural inclunation submit to communities and associations; their mode of living is at first simple, knowking no guile and strange to cunning, called in its early stage the Golden Age. [16] The more these populations progress in civilization and employment of the arts, the more easily does the spirit of rivalry creep in, at first commendable but imperceptibly changing to envy; this, then, is responsible for all the tribulations that the race suffers in subsequent ages. So much for the vicissitudes that civilizations experience, of perishing and arising again, as the world goes on unchanged.[Chapter X - 15,16]

Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius

It will no doubt be agreed that there are multitudes of these defiant, aggressive types in our culture. But they do not frequent psychoanalysts' offices because our competitive culture (in which, to a considerable extent, the individual who can aggressively exploit others without conscious guilt feeling is 'succesful') supports and 'cushions' them to a greater extent than the opposite types. It is generally the culturally 'weak' individuals who get to the psychoanalyst; for in cultural terms they have the 'neurosis' and the succesfully agressive person does not.

Rollo May

At the centre of all these noble races we cannot fail to see the blond beast of prey, the magnificent blond beast avidly prowling round for spoil and victory; this hidden centre needs release from time to time, the beast must out again, must return to the wild: - Roman, Arabian, Germanic, Japanese nobility, Homeric heroes, Scandinavian Vikings - in this requirement they are all alike. It was the noble races which left the concept of 'barbarian' in their traces wherever they went; even their highest culture betrays the fact that they were conscious of this and indeed proud of it.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The cultural past is rigidly deterministic to the extent that the individual is unaware of it. An analogy, of course, is found in any psychoanalytic treatment: the patient is rigidly determined by past experiences and previously developed patterns to the extent that he is unaware of these experiences and patterns.

Rollo May

We human beings constitute and reconstitute ourselves through cultural traditions, which we experience as our own development in a historical time that spans the generations. To investigate the life-world as horizon and ground of all experience therefore requires investigating none other than generativity - the processes of becoming, of making and remaking, that occur over the generations and within which any individual genesis is always already situated. ... Individual subjectivity is intersubjectively and culturally embodied, embedded, and emergent.

A man becomes God. This is the culture of life power of a human being. This is such a culture of unimaginable life power.The term God is the self -prejudiced word. This is used to explain the thing. But whatever happens is encircling a man.

Sri Jibankrishna or Diamond

It is important to note that the acquisition of wealth, as the accepted standard of succes, does not refer to increasing material goods for sustenance purposes, or even for the purpose of increasing enjoyment. It refers rather to wealth as a sign of individual power, a proof of achievement and self-worth.Modern economic individualism, though based on belief in the free individual, has resulted in the phenomenon that increasingly large numbers of people have to work on the property (capital) of a few powerful owners. It is not surprising that such a situation should lead to widespread insecurity, for not only is the individual faced with a criterion of succes over which he has only partial control but also his opportunities for a job are in considerable measure out of his control.

Rollo May

The lack of historical memory is a serious shortcoming in our society. A mentality that can only say, “Then was then, now is now”, is ultimately immature. Knowing and judging past events is the only way to build a meaningful future. Memory is necessary for growth.

If there is anything in the life of any culture or period that gives good grounds for alarm, it is the rise of cultural pessimism, whose major passion is bitter hostility toward many or most of the people within the very culture the pessimists always feel they are intent on rescuing. When panic on one side is creating alarm on another, it is easy to forget there are always as good grounds for optimism as for pessimism, exactly the same grounds, in fact. That is because we are human. We still have every potential for good as we ever had, and the same presumptive claim to respect, our own respect in one another. We are still creatures of singular interest and value, agile of soul as we have always been and as we will continue to be even despite our errors and degradations for as long as we abide on this earth. To value one another is our greatest safety, and to indulge in fear and contempt is our gravest error.

Marilynne Robinson

I was persisting in reading my present environment in the light of my old one.

It is myopic to base sweeping change on the narrow experience of a few years.

We need to move from the existing culture of compliance in cybersecurity to developing a culture of excellence in mitigating Cyber threats.

you're deluding yourself that you have some deep spiritual connection, like you didn't just read it on Wikipedia. There's a difference between tradition and culture.

We build this country ourselves every day and we have to be, in the most positive sense, totally unreal.

Culture is like the visible and invisible levels of an iceberg -”the solid state of “water.

Pearl Zhu

Organizational culture is just like the “Operation System” of the organization, you need reboot periodically to keep it running smoothly.

Pearl Zhu

Culture is collective mindsets, attitudes, and behaviors.

Pearl Zhu

Culture should be a business ‘app,’ everyone can apply it daily.

Pearl Zhu

Agile is more a “direction,” than an “end.” Transforming to Agile culture means the business knows the direction they want to go on.

Pearl Zhu

Modern Boards set key tones in building fact-based business culture.

Pearl Zhu

Our focus should not be on emerging technologies, but on emerging cultural practices.

Isn't it interesting how nationalistic attitudes foster the notion that being gay is 'un-(fill in your nationality/ religion/ culture here)'?

Christina Engela

Being digital-ready is an overarching approach via building a set of “digital -flavored” cultures and taking a series of stepwise practices.

Pearl Zhu

Apparently, when conditions were right, peoples of all world regions were quite capable of transforming wild plants into domesticated crops—a good point to keep in mind when next you hear someone claim that some cultures (usually their own) are more inventive or creative than others.

Jasmine shook her head. She had forgotten about the tales of the Jinn that her father warned her about. Now, being here the memories were returning like a slow and purposeful spider. With its long, black legs the nightmares would creep into her mind each time she closed her eyes. Then, she would see through the creature’s murky eyes. She would see the carcass of a deer as it lay in the glistening white. She would watch the hyena tearing at its sweated flesh, blood seeping into the snow forming warm pools of death around her feet. And in that moment, the deer shifted. It shifted into the shape of a young boy.

Shereen Malherbe

It's not a crime to offend others; in fact, it's pretty much a natural consequence of having diverse cultures. We live in a world full of people with different backgrounds, interests, and values, and we must learn to accept that there will be clashes. As long as the differences do no harm, we should back off and accept them.

PZ Myers

American culture, perhaps more than any other, prizes individualism. Our narratives of art, politics, and business idolize the person who triumphs against the odds, with only himself or herself to answer to. The lone wolf. The stranger in town. The maverick. The plucky kid. The Final Girl. You've only got yourself, in the end. It's all up to you.

The fact is, man has never stayed by a single ideal. The mass enthusiasm when you were young gave way to cool, rationalistic classicism. Today that’s being drowned in turn by a kind of neoromanticism. God knows where that will lead. I probably won’t approve. Regardless, new generations grow up. We’ve no right to freeze them into our own mold. The universe is too wide.

Hit me with spit on the wounds.

Deep down, people who deliberately distribute other people’s music and stuff feel contempt for professionals. And it’s not just culture — these days lots of people are contemptuous of everything. Without realizing it, they’re searching for things to despise.

Fuminori Nakamura

You cannot step a foot into the literature about the 1960s without being told how 'creative', 'idealistic', and 'loving' it was, especially in comparison to the 1950s. I fact, the counterculture of the Sixties represented the triumph of what the art critic Harold Rosenberg famously called the 'herd of the independent minds'. Its so-called creativity consisted in continually recirculating a small number of radical cliches; its idealism was little more than irresponsible utopianism; and its crusading for 'love' was largely a blind for hedonistic self-indulgence.

Danes express their strongest feelings in conjunction with food. That became clear to me the first time I was out visiting friends with Moritz. When I took a third helping of cookies, he looked straight at me."Keep on taking until you're ashamed of yourself," he said.I wasn't confident about my Danish, but I understood what he meant. I helped myself three more times. Without taking my eyes off him. The room disappeared, the people we were visiting disappeared, I didn't taste the cookies. Only Moritz existed."I'm still not ashamed," I said.I helped myself three more times. Then he grabbed the platter and put it out of my reach. I had won. The first of a long series of small, important victories over him and Danish manners.

This Captain had been brought up in Istanbul. His mind was made of minarets and domes. He capped himself with spacious ease. He was his own call to prayer.

Jeanette Winterson

Properly speaking, there are no barbarian standards. Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made. The varying degrees of culture are measured by the greater or less precision of the standards. Where there is little such precision, these standards rule existence only grosso modo; where there is much they penetrate in detail into the exercise of all the activities.

Ortega y Gasset

Consistent and clear communication creates a dynamic and sustainable culture that is there when your not there.

Biologically valid races are not real, but cultural racism is, and we must understand how this cultural reality affects our everyday interactions.

Robert Wald Sussman

Life on earth survives thanks to diversity, says Sekunda, because changing circumstances means today's winners can suddenly become tomorrow's losers. When the meteor hits, when the Green Revolution fails, when the bees unexpectedly die, the kind of anomalous diversity found in the Galapagos Islands—or in the technology of Japan—is exactly what will save us from the most dangerous failure of all: global success.

Momus

For it is a fact that a man can be profoundly out of step with his times. A man may have been born in a city famous for its idiosyncratic culture and yet, the very habits, fashions, and ideas that exalt that city in the eyes of the world may make no sense to him at all. As he proceeds through life, he looks about in a state of confusion, understanding neither the inclinations nor the aspirations of his peers.

Every civilisation has had its irrational but reassuring myth. Previous civilisations have used their culture to sing about it and tell stories about it. Ours has used its mathematics to prove it.

Either a building is part of a place or it is not. Once that kinship is there, time will only make it stronger.

These outlanders are peculiar, aren’t they?"Longbow smiled faintly. "They seem to think that we’re the peculiar ones. Their lives are very complicated, but we try our best to keep everything simple. I’m not sure exactly why, but that seems to offend them for some reason.

My family’s tradition of ‘matching-matching’ names is so obsessive, it’s against the order of nature. When my uncles Anil and Anant married, they took advantage of a heinous custom in Marathi weddings. After the pheras, a dish of uncooked rice is placed before the newlyweds, and whatever name the husband chooses to write in the rice becomes the new name of his wife.Because marriage in our culture is akin to buying a puppy at a pet shop and saying, ‘I am your new owner, and I shall call you Flu y.’So Anil Adarkar brought home Asha Adarkar (née Kiran), and Anant Adarkar brought home Anita Adarkar (née Geeta). And to complete this picture of divine perfection they named their children Aniket, and Ashwini and Ashleysha, respectively.

Nikita Deshpande

Normality is an illusion, created by a conservative culture to control behaviour

Merlyn Gabriel Miller

Englishmen did not speak to strangers on trains ...

I understood then why people were so often defeated by this world. Perhaps the web of support that they required just did not come into alignment when it had to. Or perhaps our culture lacked the channels by which to offer this support.

Culture is a fibreglass condom suit - highly restrictive, uncomfortable and itchy as hell.

Merlyn Gabriel Miller

Culture is a virus. It distorts your view of the world and destroys your capacity to think independently.

Merlyn Gabriel Miller

It's not a crime to offend others; in fact, it's pretty much a natural consequence of having diverse cultures. We live in a world full of people with different backgrounds, interests, and values, and we must learn to accept that there will be clashes. As long as the differences do no harm, we should back off and accept them

Other sovereign democratic states have central governments more corrupted other than our own, but most can fall back on unifying elements we lack: common ethnicity, a shared religion, or near-universal consensus on many fundamental political issues. The United States needs its central government to function cleanly, openly, and efficiently because it's one of the few things binding us together.

Becoming 'color blind' isn't helpful. Who you are matters, how you are matters. Things like race and culture are a manifestation of flows of creation. Your identity doesn't just matter, without it your soul can't interact with the world. The key is we need to understand that all races, ethnic groups, cultures and like treasures are equal and we must remember to follow our soul rather than our identity. The identity is something the soul works through, not the other way around.

Rebekah Elizabeth Gamble

One paid for one's knowledge with one's skin.

Rudyard Kipling

Those of us in the first American generations have had to figure out how the invisible world the emigrants built around our childhoods fits in solid America.

Maxine Hong Kingston

Really good films don't diminish anything, they don't close things off. On the contrary, they open up new insights, they make new thoughts thinkable. They crowd us, they deflate our slovenly lifestyle, our thoughtless way of chattering and pissing away our time and energy and passion. Believe me, films can teach us a huge amount. And they give us a true picture of the way life is."Mari laughed. "Of our slovenly lifestyle, you mean? You mean, maybe they teach us to piss our lives away with a little more intelligence, a little more elegance?

Accepted social gender roles and expectations are so entrenched in our culture that most people cannot imagine any other way. As a result, individuals fitting neatly into these expectations rarely if ever question what gender really means. They have never had to, because the system has worked for them.

Nicki Petrikowski

Many say that it is ethnocentric to claim that our religion is superior to others. Yet isn't that very statement ethnocentric? Most non-Western cultures have no problem saying that their culture and religion is best. The idea that it is wrong to do so is deeply rooted in Western traditions of self-criticism and individualism. To charge others with the "sin" of ethnocentrism is really a way of saying, "Our culture's approach to other cultures is superior to yours.

Timothy J. Keller

Having the kingdom culture is establishing kingdom lifestyle on earth

When a people has no translations and is unable to promote its culture, it does not exist.

I became a chameleon. My color didn't change, but I could change your perception of my color. If you spoke Zulu, I replied to you in Zulu. If you spoke to me in Tswana, I replied to you in Tswana. Maybe I didn't look like you, but if I spoke like you, I was you.

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