Quotes About Modernization

We live in a world where many kinds of regression dignify themselves with the mantle of progress.

No system in history has been more relentless [than capitalism] in battering down ancient and fragile cultures, pulverizing centuries-old practices in a matter of years, devouring the resources of whole regions, and standardizing the varieties of human experience.

Old oppressions have a way of reappearing in modern dress, even if not quite as viciously and blatantly as in bygone times.

Instead of eating exclusively from the sun, humanity now began to sip petroleum.

Mare parte din atractivitatea lan?ului trofic industrial ?ine de facilitatea lui: le ofer? oamenilor ocupa?i un mod de a delega altora g?titul (?i conservarea alimentelor).

If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be doing sitcoms.

All paraphrases and expletives are so much in disuse that soon the only way of making love will be to say, "Lie down.

And before long there will be no more milk in bottles delivered to the doorstep or sleepy rural pubs, and the countryside will be mostly shopping centers and theme parks. Forgive me. I don't mean to get upset. But you are taking my world away from me, piece by little piece, and sometimes it just pisses me off. Sorry.

New Rule: Churches have to stop ringing the damn bells. It was a good idea in the Middle Ages, but people have clocks now. It's not like you're doing us all a favor by keeping the hunchbacks off the street. Make up your mind, are you a house of worship or an ice cream truck?

I'm not sure he's wrong about automobiles, he said. With all their speed forward they may be a step backward in civilization -- that is, in spiritual civilization. It may be that they will not add to the beauty of the world, nor to the life of men's souls.

People chatted on cell phones and pecked away at keyboards. They had buds in their ears and listened to music or watched videos on their devices. Whatever happened to a cup of coffee and a newspaper? Hell, he thought, whatever happened to newspapers?

Todo en la civilización moderna tiende a sofocar el sentimiento heroico de la vida. Todo tiende a la mecanización, al aburguesamiento, a la nivelación resuelta y prudente, a la fabricación de seres presos de sus necesidades y privados de toda autonomía

There are those who say that when civilization progresses a bit further transportation facilities will move into the skies and under the ground, and that our streets will again be quiet, but I know perfectly well that when that day comes some new device for torturing the old will be invented.

These days, most poor families in the West have cell phones, televisions, washing machines, and cars. Their

A child of the new age of iron, steam, and mechanical wonders, the architect, Isaiah Rogers, virtually invented the modern hotel: a functionally complex and self-contained structure (and social organization) that was a sort of human terrarium. A closed world designed from the ground up for the specific purpose of welcoming, housing, maintaining, and feeding guests in advanced comfort, the hotel was no longer just a stop along the way: it was a destination in itself

You just don't, in the 21st century, behave in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text.

We need to invest in our crumbling infrastructure to create jobs and remain economically competitive.

We need a massive investment in infrastructure in this country.

I've gotten into doing electronic books and audiobooks, so I have an iPad. I still love reading a real book, but when you travel, it's better than carrying around a bunch of books.

I will use my expertise in technology to bring the IRS up to date.

Political scientist Ronald Inglehart, who has overseen the massive World Values Survey that seeks to measure value change around the world, has argued that economic modernization and middle-class status produce what he calls "post-material" values in which democracy, equality, and identity issues become much more prominent than older issues of economic distribution.

On the other hand, countries that democratized early, before they established modern administrations, found themselves developing clientelistic public sectors.

If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger.

It is probably not a joke that computer games, spectator sports, television violence fantasies, and weekend hunting and fishing expeditions are the necessary transformations of outmoded but undiminished vestigial drives and skills that humans still carry with them. But is the creation of a menu of imaginative diversions our only recourse to the unremitting sway of an obsolete "hunter-gatherer" heritage?