Quotes About Society

To assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society. Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic. But the alternative—to abandon trust as a defense against predation and deception—is worse.

The Power of Context is an environmental argument. It says that behavior is a function of social context.

Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement. We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And, most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play — and by "we" I mean society — in determining who makes it and who doesn't.

The death of Sandra Bland is what happens when a society does not know how to talk to strangers.

Minor, seemingly insignificant quality-of-life crimes, they said, were Tipping Points for violent crime.

We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And, most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play—and by "we" I mean society—in determining who makes it and who doesn't.

If more than two percent of the neighborhood goes to prison, Clear concluded, the effect on crime starts to reverse.

We could start by no longer penalizing one another for defaulting to truth. If you are a parent whose child was abused by a stranger—even if you were in the room—that does not make you a bad parent. And if you are a university president and you do not jump to the worst-case scenario when given a murky report about one of your employees, that doesn't make you a criminal. To assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society.

Aplicamos el sesgo de veracidad —aun cuando esa decisión acarrea riesgos terribles— porque no tenemos elección. La sociedad no puede funcionar de otra manera. Y en esos casos raros en los que la confianza termina en traición, aquellos que son victimizados por el sesgo de veracidad merecen nuestra simpatía, no nuestra censura.

In a city, relatively minor problems like graffiti, public disorder, and aggressive panhandling, they write, are all the equivalent of broken windows, invitations to more serious crimes:

we cling to the idea that success is a simple function of individual merit and that the world in which we all grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society don't matter at all.

Words belong to the person who wrote them. There are few simpler ethical notions than this one, particularly as society directs more and more energy and resources toward the creation of intellectual property.

But Tim Levine's research suggests that they aren't random—that we have built a world that systematically discriminates against a class of people who, through no fault of their own, violate our ridiculous ideas about transparency.

Italian Roseto. Roseto, Pennsylvania, was its own tiny, self-sufficient world—all but unknown by the society around it—and it might well have

If we were more thoughtful as a society, if we were willing to engage in some soul searching about how we approach and make sense of strangers Sandra Bland would not have ended up dead in a Texas jail cell.

We accept the fact that being a parent requires a fundamental level of trust in the community of people around your child. If every coach is assumed to be a podophile, then no parent would ever let their child leave the house. And no sane person would ever volunteer to be a coach. We default to truth even when that decision carries terrible risks because we have no choice. Society cannot function otherwise.

Kids with dyslexia are more likely to end up in the juvenile system, because they act up. It's because they can't figure things out. It's so important in our society to read.

They were strangers to each other. If we were more thoughtful as a society—if we were willing to engage in some soul-searching about how we approach and make sense of strangers—she would not have ended up dead in a Texas jail cell.

Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement. We prematurely write off people as failures. And, most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play—and by we I mean society—in determining who makes it and who doesn't.

In Mexico, on his grandfather's farm, dogs were dogs and humans were humans: each knew its place. But in America, dogs were treated like children, and owners had shaken up the hierarchy of human and animal.

They had to look beyond the individual. They had to understand the culture he or she was a part of, and who their friends and families were, and what town their families came from. They had to appreciate the idea that the values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are.

To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success...with a society that provides opportunities for all.

Another area of the moral and spiritual decline of Christendom is the abandonment of Christian mores. The movement away from Christian moral standards has not meant moving to an alternative humanistic system of moral standards as was anticipated, but moving into a moral vacuum, especially in the areas of eroticism.

True Islam taught me that it takes all of the religious, political, economic, psychological, and racial ingredients, or characteristics, to make the Human Family and the Human Society complete.