Quotes About Society

Middle-class prosperity is lapidary; the flow of cash rounds and smooths a person like water does riverbed stones. The goal of all such persons seems to be to make themselves cuddly and nonthreatening.

but it seemed that most of the people of Seattle were still obeying the rules and so he did likewise.

Rife's key realization was that there's no difference between modern culture and Sumerian. We have a huge workforce that is illiterate or alliterate and relies on TV—which is sort of an oral tradition. And we have a small, extremely literate power elite—the people who go into the Metaverse, basically—who understand that information is power, and who control society because they have this semimystical ability to speak magic computer languages.

The social structure of any nation-state is ultimately determined by its security arrangements.

Conflict, acted out openly and publicly, was a male mode of social interaction—the foundation for patriarchal society which brought with it the usual litany of dreadful things. Regardless, Randy decided to get patriarchal with Dr. G. E. B. Kivistik.

She was just in the process of proving them all desperately wrong. But at this phase, the all-male society of bitheads that made up the power structure of Black Sun Systems said that the face problem was trivial and superficial. It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists.

And when horny, well-paid American flyboys are dropped into a culture defined half by cannibals and half by Frenchmen, you get a hell of a civilian economy.

THE LAY OF WALMART TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: "The Lay of Walmart" comprises two parts. Handwriting analysis confirms that both were written by the same author, self-identified as Tóki Olafsson, a skald

What makes one Sumerian city better than another one? A bigger ziggurat? A better football team? Better me. What are me? Rules or principles that control the operation of society, like a code of laws, but on a more fundamental level. I don't get it. That is the point. Sumerian myths are not 'readable' or 'enjoyable' in the same sense that Greek and Hebrew myths are. They reflect a fundamentally different consciousness from ours.

Moral reforms and deteriorations are moved by large forces, and they are mostly caused by reactions from the habits of a preceding period. Backwards and forwards swings the great pendulum, and its alternations are not determined by a few distinguished folk clinging to the end of it. —Sir Charles Petrie, THE VICTORIANS

Here in the First World, everyone has already been vaccinated, and we don't let religious fanatics come up and poke needles into us. But we do take a lot of drugs.

Neal Stephenson

Any power structure one of whose main goals was to prevent humans from fucking each other at will had to be extremely formidable.

Neal Stephenson

Yes, I am, but I'm also referring to certain white men in suits. It only takes a single generation to revert to savagery.

We have a huge workforce that is illiterate or alliterate and relies on TV—which is sort of an oral tradition. And we have a small, extremely literate power elite—the people who go into the Metaverse, basically—who understand that information is power, and who control society because they have this semimystical ability to speak magic computer languages.

This had led to college and grad school and a long dispiriting run of un- and underemployment, since the economy didn't seem interested in comparative religion majors.

like an opium addict squatting in the middle of a frenetic downtown street, blowing a reed of sweet smoke out between his teeth, staring into some ancient dream that all the bustling pedestrians had banished to unfrequented parts of their minds.

This Snow Crash thing—is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?" Juanita shrugs. "What's the difference?

It only takes a single generation to revert to savagery.

amística, un término acuñado hacía eones por un antropólogo moirano para referirse a las elecciones que hacían las diferentes culturas en cuanto a qué tecnologías formarían parte de su vida y cuáles no.

It was the destruction of our society. When our society was based upon planting, it could truly be said, as the Master did, "Virtue is the root; wealth is the result.' But under the Western ti, wealth comes not from virtue but from cleverness. So the filial relationships became deranged. Chaos

Problem is not aggression. It is lack of discipline. A person can be aggressive and still be constructive in society if she controls her passions.

To the Equity Lords, the idea had been worth billions; to Hackworth, another week's paycheck. That was the difference between the classes, right there.