Modern life seems to recede further and further away from nature, and closely connected with this fact we seem to be losing the feeling of reverence towards nature. It is probably inevitable when science and machinery, capitalism and materialism go h...
The little boats cannot make much difference to the welfare of Gaza either way, since the materials being shipped are in such negligible quantity. The chief significance of the enterprise is therefore symbolic. And the symbolism, when examined even c...
The other thing that’s happened with writing is that I’m not afraid it will go away. Up until a couple of years ago, I feared that sitting down with paper and pencil revealed too much desire and that for such ambition I would be punished. My voca...
For a patrimonial state to be stable over time, it is best ruled with consent, at least with consent from the largest minority, if not from the majority. Instinctive obedience must be the norm, otherwise too much effort needs to be put into suppressi...
A consequence of female self-love is that the woman grows convinced of social worth. Her love for her body will be unqualified, which is the basis of female identification. If a woman loves her own body, she doesn't grudge what other women do with th...
I often feel the pressure, from my peers and others, to come out and “take a stand” on a moral or social issue. Typically, I refuse to do so, or at least I refuse to do so in a way that will please my critics. On so many of the hard and divisive ...
L'unité de l'homme primitif et de la nature est d'essence magique. L'homme ne se sépare vraiment de la nature qu'en la transformant par la technique et, la transformant, il la désacralise. Or l'emploi de la technique est subordonné à une organis...
This principle - that your spouse should be capable of becoming your best friend - is a game changer when you address the question of compatibility in a prospective spouse. If you think of marriage largely in terms of erotic love, then compatibility ...
Now I have very little respect for the electoral system in the United States. I could have respected it in the early days, when the country was small and we had small population. The system that we have in the United States was set up at a time when ...
Sean Parker: And that's where you're headed, a billion dollar valuation. Unless you take bad advice, in which case you may as well have come up with a chain of very successful yogurt shops. When you go fishing you can catch a lot of fish, or you can ...
One wrong move, one bad rumor, one mistake, and it's social death row. I'm the latest to be sentenced. Move out of the way, everyone. Dead girl walking. -Riley
The time has come, that man should change his ideas to respect the woman and woman should her to trust the man. Now social interactions need a better way to grow up.
Ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore -- "I'm easy; I'll eat anything" -- can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society.
The only debatable issue, it seems to me, is whether it is more ridiculous to turn to experts in social theory for general well-confirmed propositions, or to the specialists in the great religions and philosophical systems for insights into fundament...
The social custom of calling on people when they are unwell has always mystified me. By definition, you’re not feeling or looking your best. Why on earth do people assume you might want visitors?
Healthy" and "diseased," as Susan Sontag points out...are often subjective judgments that society makes for its own purposes. Women have long been defined as sick as a means of subjecting them to social control.
The surgeons' market is imaginary, since there is nothing wrong with women's faces or bodies that social change won't cure; so the surgeons depend for their income on warping female self-perception and multiplying female self-hatred.
That Newton shuddered now [at slavery] is a testimony to they way a strong social movement can awaken a conscience..
It's a fundamental, social attitude that the 1% supports symphonies and operas and doesn't support Johnny learning to program hip-hop beats. When I put it like that, it sounds like, 'Well, yeah,' but you start to think, 'Why not, though?' What makes ...
Even if people do wrong, we're social animals, so what can we do about stopping them doing the same things in future? Saying people are 'bad' or 'evil' is just an unwillingness to engage; an unwillingness to try to empathise. That sanctimonious attit...
There's something unique about the United States, a sense of individual rights and freedoms, and a sense of social and civic responsibility that we contributed to so much of the world. We lost that mission in the 1980s and 1990s, when we entered a gi...
