Quotes About Society

The truth is that Lautréamont had only to look the iron man forged by capitalist society squarely in the eye to perceive the monster, the everyday monster, his hero.

It is not a dead society that we want to revive. We leave that to those who go in for exoticism.

A man screaming is not a dancing bear. Life is not a spectacle.

We are brought up to proclaim ourselves as individuals in such an extreme way that often we don't feel any connection to anything at all, not even to our own parents or families.

Simply that we are mirroring the trends in society, at any given time smuggling was an issue in the seventies, corruption is an issue today, and we faithfully reflect those issues.

Japan had always had a thriving sex trade, but this was different. Before the war there had been a few streetwalkers in the seamier parts of town, but most of the prostitution was carried on in designated brothels, behind closed doors, with a certain decadent élan. Now, though, there were hordes of women standing around all the major train stations hoping to rent their bodies to some stranger for an hour or two, simply because they could find no other way to support themselves.

For me to try to analyze and explain Japanese society from that point of view was therefore impossible. I simply felt the vague dissatisfactions and dislikes that Japanese society encouraged, and in order to contend with these feelings, I had joined the most radical movement I could find. Looking back on it now, my behavior seems terribly frivolous and reckless.

Granting that there is some truth to the theory that defects in society give rise to the emergence of criminals, I still maintain that those who use this theory as a defense of criminality are overlooking the fact that there are many people in this defective society who survive without resorting to crime. The argument to the contrary is pure sophistry.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.

The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton.

In our society leaving baby with Daddy is just one step above leaving the kids to be raised by wolves or apes.

When one abdicates universality, one obtains universal horror.

Modernity proclaims rights without in any way providing the means to exercise them.

One can have a society without God," writes Régis Debray, "but there cannot be a society without religion." He adds, "Those nations on the way to disbelief are on the path to abdication." One can also cite Georges Bataille, according to whom, "religion, whose essence is the search for lost intimacy, boils down to a clearly conscious effort to become entirely self-conscious.

I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever believed.

Barbarism is not the inheritance of our prehistory. It is the companion that dogs our every step.

Les murs s'effritent : l'actualité force les portes du temple, la liberté des Modernes s'invite dans les cours de récréation et des salles de classe, le présent ne s'oublie jamais, les envies de la vie envahissant l'institution, la société, avec ses codes, ses modes, ses marques, ses emblèmes, ses objets fétiches, ses signes d'appartenance et de reconnaissance, déferle à l'école. (p49)

To tell the truth, girls are no longer the way they used to be. They play gangsters, nowadays, just like boys. They organize rackets. They plan holdups and practice karate. They will rape defenseless adolescents. They wear pants... Life has become impossible.

TV has taken reflection out of the human condition. People didn't use to have a ready answer for everything, whether they knew something about it or not. People think they have to have an answer for everything because the guys on TV have an answer for everything. But it's bullsh**t! Reflection is crucial.

The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free -- which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.

Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.

Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we should have people standing in the corners of our rooms.

Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we would have people standing in the corners of our rooms.

really made me feel that women have been coerced into a way of presenting themselves that is basically a form of bondage. Their shoes, their skirts, even their nails seem designed to stop them from being able