Quotes About Society

Human beings cooperate to compete and compete to cooperate.

Liberal individualism does not preclude or deny human sociability; it simply means that most social engagements in a liberal society will ideally be voluntary. You can join with other people, but what groups you join are, to the maximum extent possible, a matter of personal choice.

To deceive the state, strangers, or even associates is accepted, and often applauded as evidence of cleverness.

Unrepresentative interest groups are not simply creatures of corporate America and the Right. Some of the most powerful organizations in democratic countries have been trade unions, followed by environmental groups, women's organizations, advocates of gay rights, the aged, the disabled, indigenous peoples, and virtually every other sector of society.

Human beings do not enter into society and political life as a result of conscious, rational decision. Communal organization comes to them naturally, though the specific ways they cooperate are shaped by environment, ideas, and culture. Indeed

an idea that became foundational in modern thought, that we have deeply hidden inner natures that are smothered by the layers of social rules imposed on us by the society surrounding us. Autonomy for him meant recovery of that authentic inner self, and escape from the social rules that imprisoned it.

At the end of Trump's term, what I've learned is that I really don't understand America well at all.

In societies where most politicians are corrupt, singling one out for punishment is often not a sign of reform but of a power grab.

The remedy is to define larger and more integrative national identities that take account of the de facto diversity of existing liberal democratic societies.

The desire to pass resources on to kin is one of the most enduring constants in human politics.

For Hegel , by contrast, liberal society is a reciprocal and equal agreement among citizens to mutually recognize each other

By contrast, people who do not trust one another will end up cooperating only under a system of formal rules and regulations, which have to be negotiated, agreed to, litigated, and enforced, sometimes by coercive means. This legal apparatus, serving as a substitute for trust, entails what economists call "transaction costs." Widespread distrust in a society, in other words, imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity, a tax that high-trust societies do not have to pay.

the struggle to replace "tribal" politics with a more impersonal form of political relationships continues in the twenty-first century.

If morality is reducible to culture, then there can be no real moral progress. For the only way one can say that a culture is getting better , or progressing, is if there are objective moral norms that are not dependent on culture to which a society may draw closer.

Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society.

Liberalism is Rationalism in politics.

The 19th century was the age of Individualism the 20th and 21st are the ages of Socialism.

Feminism liberated women from the natural dignity of their sex and turned them into inferior men.

History - that little sewer where man loves to wallow.

Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse.

Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thy equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best of the company is the way to grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the worst there.

But there is, alas, no doubt that we are becoming a vocabulary-deprived nation—nay, planet. Words have been dropping off all through this century, but the loss increased radically in the sixties with the immorality of "limited vocabulary.

Y en la fornicación, que es un bien general, debe haber democracia libre, porque si no… va a haber que hacerlo por correspondencia…

La corrupción política es el padre y la madre de la expansión de la violencia organizada en México»