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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #culture
If we turn to those restrictions that only apply to certain classes of society, we encounter a state of things which is glaringly obvious and has always been recognized. It is to be expected that the neglected classes will grudge the favoured ones their privileges and that they will do everything in their to power to rid themselves of their own surplus of privation. Where this is not possible a lasting measure of discontent will obtain within this culture, and this may lead to dangerous outbreaks. But if a culture has not got beyond the stage in which the satisfaction of one group of its members necessarily involves the suppression of another, perhaps the majority---and this is the case in all modern cultures,---it is intelligible that these suppressed classes should develop an intense hostility to the culture; a culture, whose existence they make possible by their labour, but in whose resources they have too small a share. In such conditions one must not expect to find an internalization of the cultural prohibitions among the suppressed classes; indeed they are not even prepared to acknowledge these prohibitions, intent, as they are, on the destruction of the culture itself and perhaps even of the assumptions on which it rests. These classes are so manifestly hostile to culture that on that account the more latent hostility of the better provided social strata has been overlooked. It need not be said that a culture which leaves unsatisfied and drives to rebelliousness so large a number of its members neither has a prospect of continued existence, nor deserves it. ↗
We live in a culture of reductionism. Or better, we are living in the aftermath of a culture of reductionism, and I believe we have reduced the complexity and diversity of the Scriptures to systematic theologies that insist on ideological conformity, even when such conformity flattens the diversity of the Scriptural witness. We have reduced our conception of gospel to four simple steps that short-circuit biblical narratives and notions of the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven in favor of a simplified means of entrance to heaven. Our preaching is often wed to our materialistic, consumerist cultural assumptions, and sermons are subsequently reduced to delivering messages that reinforce the worst of what American culture produces: self-centered end users who believe that God is a resource that helps an individual secure what amounts to an anemic and culturally bound understanding of the 'abundant life. ↗
The image of the journalist as wallflower at the orgy has been replaced by the journalist as the life of the party. ↗
#pop-culture #press #life
..Pamanku yang berjiwa lapang dan merupakan umat Nabi Muhammad yang amat pemurah, menyediakan kopi miskin dalam menu warungnya. Sesekali, secara diam-diam, pamanku menyuruh kami menambahkan gula untuk kopi miskin, karena ia tak sampai hati pada kaum yang papa itu. Namun aneh, pembeli melarat yang telah terbiasa dengan kopi miskin malah tak menyukai hal itu. Pelajaran moral nomor dua puluh dua: kemiskinan susah diberantas karena pelakunya senang menjadi miskin. ↗
...we have hyphenated Americans: African-American, Asian-Americans, Latin-Americans, Jewish-Americans and Native-Americans. Publicly they are expected to live to the right of the hyphen, but privately they can choose the left. In public, they are expected to speak a common language, but at home they may converse in ethnic and religious dialects. If the ethnic community is assimilated, life is lived as an American. (p 64-65). ↗
Apparently our portmanteau is trending on Twitter." He let out a self-deprecating laugh. "I didn't even know what a portmanteau was before Jukebox Hero. It's a mashup of our names, like Brangelina or Robsten. No idea what ours is -- what do our names make?" He considered this a for a moment before shaking his head. "It's probably awful," he decided. "Could be worse, though; I hear the portmanteau for the main characters in The Hunger Games is... well, their names are Peeta and Katniss. I'll let you guys figure that one out on your own. ↗
Intellectual property, more than ever, is a line drawn around information, which asserts that despite having been set loose in the world - and having, inevitably, been created out of an individual's relationship with the world - that information retains some connection with its author that allows that person some control over how it is replicated and used. In other words, the claim that lies beneath the notion of intellectual property is similar or identical to the one that underpins notions of privacy. It seems to me that the two are inseparable, because they are fundamentally aspects of the same issue, the need we have to be able to do something by convention that is impossible by force: the need to ringfence certain information. I believe that the most important unexamined notion - for policymakers and agitators both - in these debates is that they are one: you can't persuade people on the one hand to abandon intellectual property (a decision which, incidentally, would mean an even more massive upheaval in the way the world runs than we've seen so far since 1990) and hope to keep them interested in privacy. You can't trash privacy and hope to retain a sense of respect for IP. ↗
If diversity is a source of wonder, its opposite - the ubiquitous condensation to some blandly amorphous and singulary generic modern culture that takes for granted an impoverished environment - is a source of dismay. There is, indeed, a fire burning over the earth, taking with it plants and animals, cultures, languages, ancient skills and visionary wisdom. Quelling this flame, and re-inventing the poetry of diversity is perhaps the most importent challenge of our times. ↗
