Tag Archive for: Society

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Anita Hofmann | by practicing a state on a small scale, namely at school

"This is about: What is actually best for children and young people? And how do they get their education and how do they become citizens? Because that is also the goal of our schooling, that I am an educated person who can also fulfill my civic duties and for that I need appropriate behavior and I learn that not only explicitly through knowledge, but also implicitly by practicing a state on a small scale, namely at school."

Anita Hofmann

Yuval Noah Harari | it would be very tempting, and easy, to toss you overboard

"Your future depends on the goodwill of a small elite. Maybe there is goodwill for a few decades. But in a time of crisis – like climate catastrophe – it would be very tempting, and easy, to toss you overboard."

Yuval Noah Harari

William Shakespeare | All the world’s a stage

"All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances"

William Shakespeare

George Bernard Shaw | The longer I live, the more convinced am I

"The longer I live, the more convinced am I that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum."

George Bernard Shaw

Avro Manhattan | No political event or circumstance can be evaluated

"No political event or circumstance can be evaluated without the knowledge of The Vatican's part in it. And no significant world situation exists in which The Vatican does not play an important explicit or implicit role."

Avro Manhattan

Frantz Fanon | Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong

"Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."

Frantz Fanon

Charles H. Spurgeon | Es wird eine Zeit kommen

"A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats."

Charles H. Spurgeon

Friedrich Nietzsche | Insanity is a rare thing in individuals

"Insanity is a rare thing in individuals, but the rule in groups, parties, peoples and times."

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Voltaire | I disapprove of what you say

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Voltaire

Charles Bukowski | How in the hell could a man enjoy

"How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?"

Charles Bukowski

Gabriel Laub | Die hartnäckigsten Anhänger der Sklaverei

"The most stubborn supporters of slavery were not the slave owners, but the privileged slaves."

Gabriel Laub

Vladimir Lenin | Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed?

"Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?"

Vladimir Lenin

Communist Party | When certain obstructionists become too irritating

"When certain obstructionists become too irritating, label them, after suitable build-ups, as Fascist or Nazi or anti Semitic ... to discredit them. In the public mind, constantly associate those who oppose us with those names which already have a bad smell. The association will, after enough repetition, become 'fact' in the public mind."

Communist Party

Max Weber | All political entities are violent entities

"All political entities are violent entities. But the type and degree of the use or threat of external violence against other similar entities plays a specific role in the structure and fate of political communities. Not every political entity is equally "expansive" in the sense that it seeks power externally, i.e., making force available for the purpose of acquiring political power over other territories and communities, whether in the form of incorporation or [of] dependency. The political entities are thus, to varying degrees, outwardly turned entities of violence."

Max Weber

Vladimir Lenin | We can and must write in a language

"We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us."

Vladimir Lenin

Hermann Rotermund | short devotional in a living room chapel

"The tone is gently authoritarian, leaving no doubt that this is the way the world is and no other way [....]Proclaimers of unassailable truths [....] The broadcast gives the impression of a short devotional in a living room chapel."

Hermann Rotermund

Carl Sagan | Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreshadowing of an America in the time of my children or grandchildren – when the United States is a service and information economy; when Almost all major manufacturing industries have moved to other countries; when terrible technological powers are in the hands of too few, and no one representing the public interest can understand the issues; when people have lost the ability to set their own agenda. Lost or deliberately questioned by those in power; when, holding our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our vital faculties decline, in distinguishing between what feels good and what is true Unable, we go back to superstition and darkness, almost without noticing.

America’s downfall is most evident in the slow decay of real content in the most influential media, 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), credible presentations on lowest common denominator programming, pseudoscience and superstition, but especially From a kind of celebration of ignorance."

Dr. Carl Edward Sagan

Konrad Lorenz | To the extent that handicrafts are wiped out by the competition of industry

"To the extent that handicrafts are wiped out by the competition of industry, and to the extent that the smaller entrepreneur, including the farmer, becomes unable to exist, we are all quite simply forced to submit in our way of life to the wishes of the large producers, to eat the food and put on the clothes they think good for us, and what is worst of all, by virtue of the conditioning bestowed upon us, we do not even realize that they are doing so."

Konrad Lorenz

John Henry Mackay | I am an Anarchist

"Ever reviled, accursed, ne’er understood,
Thou art the grisly terror of our age.
“Wreck of all order,” cry the multitude,
“Art thou, and war and murder’s endless rage.”
O, let them cry. To them that ne’er have striven
The truth that lies behind a word to find,
To them the word’s right meaning was not given.
They shall continue blind among the blind.
But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure,
Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken.
I give thee to the future! Thine secure
When each at least unto himself shall waken.
Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest’s thrill?
I cannot tell—but it the earth shall see!
I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!"

John Henry Mackay

Murray Rothbard | not for equal freedom but for equal slavery

"The egalitarians are arguing not for equal freedom but for equal slavery or equal robbery in the name of “fairness."

Murray Rothbard

Bill Maher | If kids knew what they wanted to be at age eight

"If kids knew what they wanted to be at age eight, the world would be filled with cowboys and princesses. I wanted to be a pirate. Thank God nobody took me seriously and scheduled me for eye removal and peg leg surgery."

Bill Maher

Theodore Dalrymple | Political correctness is communist propaganda

"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."

Theodore Dalrymple

Mark Passio | The more moral a population is, the freer it becomes

"The more moral a population is, the freer it becomes. The more immoral a population is, the deeper into bondage and slavery it goes. Another way of saying this is to say that the presence of truth and morality in the lives of the people of any given society is always inversely proportional to the presence of tyranny and slavery in that society. The more truth and morality there is, the less tyranny and slavery there is. The less truth and morality there is, the more tyranny and slavery there is. That's the Law of Freedom. And many people don't want to understand that; that these two things are inextricably interwoven and connected and can never be separated from each other: the presence of truth and morality in a society and the presence of freedom or its lack in a society."

Mark Passio

Robbie Williams | We’re in a post-truth world

"We're in a post-truth world where you can't believe the media, you can't believe Big Pharma, you can't believe politicians, you can't believe what you're eating, you can't believe yourself. Since we've existed, (if) there is a time where this whole empire could fall, it's now. Of course these things are going to arise because we can't trust anybody or anything. And I personally just believe and invest in my wife and my kids and my family. And yeah, I believe in them,"

Robbie Williams

Dr. Robert Mendelsohn | I no longer believe in Modern Medicine

"I no longer believe in Modern Medicine. I believe that despite all the super technology and elite bedside manner... the greatest danger to your health is the doctor who practices Modern Medicine. I believe that Modern Medicine's treatments for disease are seldom effective, and that they're often more dangerous than the disease they're designed to treat.
I believe more than 90% of Modern Medicine could disappear from the face of the earth--doctors, hospitals, drugs and equipment---and the effect on our health would be immediate & beneficial.....Modern Medicine can't survive without our faith, because Modern Medicine is neither an art nor a science. It's a religion."

Dr. Robert Mendelsohn

Prof. Stephen Schneider | to capture the public’s imagination…

"We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest"

Prof. Stephen Schneider

Richard Haass | The common enemy of humanity is man

"The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself."

Richard Haass

Frederick Taylor Gates | the people yield themselves with perfect docility

"In our dreams we have limitless resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our moulding hand. The present education conventions made from our minds and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, editors, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor shall we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply. The task which we set before ourselves is a very simple as well as a very beautiful one, to train these people as we find them to a perfectly ideal life just where they are. So we will organize our children into a little community and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way, in the homes, in the shop and on the farm."

Frederick Taylor Gates

Rupert Sheldrake | Science delusion is the belief that science …

"Science delusion is the belief that science has already fundamentally understood the nature of our reality and only the details need to be completed. I believe this is a seriously flawed view. Most people's first reaction is one of disbelief and rejection when they first hear this statement. How could there actually be anything more successful than science? It has given us cell phones, computers, airplanes, advanced forms of surgery, and much more. We have huge advantages today through science and through its technical applications. It looks as if there is no more room for error or even delusion there, and yet I maintain that at the innermost core of today's sciences there are fundamental errors of thought and dubious assumptions, and that there is a conflict within the sciences that keeps them from their proper task. I see science as a method of inquiry, a tool for exploring and investigating reality. But there is another side to the sciences, namely science as a worldview or even as a dogmatic belief system. Again, most people are shocked at first when I suggest that science can be a dogmatic belief system. They then say things like, "Hey, science in particular is the only thing that is possible for us and to leave our dogmatic belief patterns. It's the only discipline that produces tangible evidence, full respect, free inquiry, and open thinking." Now, this is the ideal of the sciences, and it is an ideal that I also share. But unfortunately, in practice, this ideal is usually not realized in the way it is preached. Within the sciences there is a strongly defined corset of beliefs that most scientists do not even suspect could be beliefs. They do believe that other people have beliefs-Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, and so on-but they themselves, of course, have no beliefs because they are, after all, concerned with scientific truth. And these beliefs are taken as such settled, established truths that they are usually not even discussed. When you study science, people don't just tell you what beliefs to accept and what things to know. You just absorb these principles like the process of osmosis in biology. These are things that are treated with such a matter of course that you just assume they must be true. Most people outside the scientific world assume that they must be true because science is simply so successful and, as a result, enjoys an enormously high level of prestige today."

Rupert Sheldrake

Richard Feynman | iintellectual tyranny in the name of science

"Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceding generation (…) When someone says, “Science teaches such and such,” he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach anything; experience teaches it. If they say to you, “Science has shown such and such,” you might ask, “How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?” It should not be “science has shown” but “this experiment, this effect, has shown.” And you have as much right as anyone else, upon hearing about the experiments–but be patient and listen to all the evidence–to judge whether a sensible conclusion has been arrived at. (…) The experts who are leading you may be wrong. (…) I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television-words, books, and so on-are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science."

Richard Phillips Feynman