Quotes About Culture

Another important difference between tourist and traveler is that the former accepts his own civilization without question; not so the traveler, who compares it with the others, and rejects those elements he finds not to this liking.

What a wonderful thing to be an American! he said impetuously. Yes, said Dyar automatically, never having given much thought to what it would be like not to be an American. It seemed somehow the natural thing to be.

Since Thami had the Arab's utter incomprehension of the meaning of pornography, he imagined that the police had placed the ban on obscene films because these infringed upon Christian doctrine at certain specific points, in which case any Christian might be expected to show interest, if only to disapprove.

Tangier is a one-horse town that happens to have its own government.

he refused to consider the Moroccans' present culture, however decadent, an established fact, an existing thing. Instead, he seemed to believe that it was something accidentally left over from bygone centuries, now in a necessary state of transition, that the people needed temporary guidance in order to progress to some better condition.

Fear-based cultures foster short-term thinking: you become defensive, seek to avoid confrontation or reprisal and focus on eliminating any threats instead of working together to deliver shared targets and outcomes.

When Captain America died, Americans heard it in an American way: through the media. When Captain Britain died, the British felt it in their chests.

We obtain and, even worse, boast about our identity by the things we consume (television, food) more than truth, goodness, and beauty, the three virtues that transcend time and borders. In America and elsewhere, I am because I consume, when it should be because God is and because I do.

the Army saw slang as a morale builder no matter how cynical it became.

Ah, but LSU is a very intoxicating place-- and I'm not talking about the alcohol that flows so freely there on a Saturday night.

A hunter-gatherer's needs are few, but a Western citizen expects a car, paved streets, hot water on demand, airports, sewer lines, phone service, a refrigerator, computer, microwave, and a PlayStation... as a start.

If Lenin walked around the offices of a company like Yahoo or Intel or Cisco, he'd think communism had won. Everyone would be wearing the same clothes, have the same kind of office (or rather, cubicle) with the same furnishings, and address one another by their first names instead of by honorifics. Everything would seem exactly as he'd predicted, until he looked at their bank accounts. Oops.

You might find contradictory taboos. In one culture it might seem shocking to think x, while in another it was shocking not to. But I think usually the shock is on one side. In one culture x is ok, and in another it's considered shocking. My hypothesis is that the side that's shocked is most likely to be the mistaken one.

So if you can make something that appeals to people today and would also have appealed to people in 1500, there is a good chance it will appeal to people in 2500.

Such is the totalitarian task of communism. Indeed, the textbook definition of totalitarianism, which I have scribbled on the chalkboard every fall semester at Grove City College since 1997, is to fundamentally transform—specifically, to seek to fundamentally transform human nature via some form of political-ideological-cultural upheaval.

I'm a burger and brew guy in a paté and Chardonnay world. I'm as health conscious as the next guy, as long as the next guy is sitting on a bar stool. FALSE DAWN http://tinyurl.com/64qngk5

People going to see the Mona Lisa, not to look at it, but because it's the Mona Lisa

let me understand this musical theater nonsense—you're being gay for credit, right?

But it's not real life. It's just America.

hit a man in the face long enough and he turns for help to his racial memory and tribal gods.

the people in this country who feel most like foreigners to each other are English people who've just arrived and the ones who have been here for several years.

In India nearly everybody spoke metaphorically except the English who spoke bluntly and could make their most transparent lies look honest as a consequence; whereas any truth contained in these metaphorical rigmaroles was so deviously presented that it looked devious itself.

A man walks down the street. It's a street in a strange world. Maybe it's the third world. Maybe it's his first time around. He doesn't speak the language. He holds no currency. He is a foreign man. He is surrounded by the sound, sound of cattle in the marketplace, scatterlings and orphanages. He looks around, around he sees angels in the architecture spinning in infinity and he says, Amen and Hallelujah!

Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts.