Quotes About Culture

Whoever writes in a foreign language must like a lover accommodate his mode of thinking to it. -- Whoever writes in his native language has the authority of a husband in his own house, if he is in command of it.

Eastern philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti,26 who explained: "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a sick society.

We live in a culture that is constantly amping us up with stress and stimulation.

The primary explanation for depression offered in our culture starts to fall apart. The idea you feel terrible because of a "chemical imbalance" was built on a series of mistakes and errors. It has come as close to being proved wrong, he told me, as you ever get in science. It's lying broken on the floor, like a neurochemical Humpty Dumpty with a very sad smile.

Some 57 percent of Americans now do not read a single book in a typical year.

It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a sick society.

As a culture, in the Western world, we work longer with each decade that passes. Ed Deci, a professor of psychology who I interviewed at the University of Rochester in upstate New York, has shown that an extra month per year has been tacked on to what, in 1969, was considered a full-time job.

derinlemesine odaklanma biçiminin böyle bir h?zla ve bu ölçüde azald??? bir dünyan?n ba??na neler gelece?ini merak etmeye ba?lad?m. Dü?ünmenin en derin tabakas? gitgide daha az insan?n eri?ebil­di?i, opera veya voleybol gibi sadece ufak bir az?nl???n ilgisini çeken bir ?ey haline geldi?inde neler olacak acaba?

We are living, she has come to believe, in a culture where people are not "getting the connections that they need in order to be healthy human beings," and that is why we can't put down our smartphones, or bear to log off. We tell ourselves that we live so much of our lives in cyberspace because when we are there, we are connected—we are plugged into a swirling party with billions of people.

What does it mean to be a society and culture so frantic that we don't have time to dream?

Toda la lógica de nuestra cultura conspira para que se quede en la rueda consumista, que salga a comprar cuando se sienta mal, que persiga valores de usar y tirar.

Some 57 percent of Americans now do not read a single book in a typical year. This has escalated to the point that by 2017, the average American spent seventeen minutes a day reading books and 5.4 hours on their phone.

Our Western society is a bit ADHD-ish because we're all sleep-deprived…. It's huge.

by 2017, the average American spent seventeen minutes a day reading books and 5.4 hours on their phone.

American spent seventeen minutes a day reading books and 5.4 hours on their phone.

in a culture where people are not "getting the connections that they need in order to be healthy human beings," and that is why we can't put down our smartphones, or bear to log off.

Big Pharma was offering the solution that an isolated, materialistic culture thought it needed—one you can buy. We had lost the ability to understand that there are some problems that can't be solved by shopping.

And if the standards of the culture were wrong then, I realized, they can be wrong now. You can have everything a person could possibly need by the standards of our culture - but those standards can badly misjudge what a human actually needs in order to have a good or even a tolerable life.

cruel optimism.' This is when you take a really big problem with deep causes in our culture - like obesity, or depression, or addiction - and you offer people, in upbeat language, a simplistic individual solution. It sounds optimistic, because you are telling them that the problem can be solved, and soon - but it is, in fact, cruel, because the solution you are offering is so limited, and so blind to the deeper causes, that for most people, it will fail.

We live in an extremely individualistic culture, where we are constantly pushed to see our problems as individual failings, and to seek out individual solutions. You're unable to focus? Overweight? Poor? Depressed? We are taught in this culture to think: That's my fault. I should have found a personal way to lift myself up and out of these environmental problems.

Trying to lose weight in the environment we've built is like trying to run up an escalator that is constantly carrying you down. A few people might heroically sprint to the top - but most of us will find ourselves back at the bottom, feeling like its our fault.

And so, Irving says, the primary explanation for depression offered in our culture starts to fall apart. The idea you feel terrible because of a "chemical imbalance" was built on a series of mistakes and errors. It has come as close to being proved wrong, he told me, as you ever get in science. It's lying broken on the floor, like a neurochemical Humpty Dumpty with a very sad smile.

As a society, we are dreaming less and less.

If it's more enraging, it's more engaging. If enough people are spending enough of their time being angered, that starts to change the culture. As Tristan told me, that turns hate into a habit.