By Modernism I mean the positive rejection of the past and the blind belief in the process of change, in novelty for its own sake,... in the idea that progress through time equates with cultural progress; in the cult of individuality, originality and self-expression.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The correct rate of speed in innovating changes in long-standing social customs has not yet been determined by even the most exper...t of the experts. Personally I am beginning to think there is more danger in lagging than in speeding up cultural change to keep pace with mechanical change.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The most condensed format of the conversionist motif is the TV commercial, which has become essential to both network and religiou...s broadcasting. Embedded in its structure are sentiments from our religious and political heritage: salvation and choice. Newness of life can now be associated with a change of heart about politics, the purchase of a new car, or the selection of a beverage. A Pepsi commercial, for example, designed to fit the charismatic personality and gifts of singer Michael Jackson, became an invitation to make a decision and join in. Images and sounds of the soft-drink ad drew viewers into a growing throng of happy, dancing people following the steps of a dynamic cultural hero. Even couch potatoes might have been roused, vicariously at least, to skip lightly behind the agile Jackson as he led his ecstatic followers to the right choice. The conversionist call in this instance is to come on up to the good life through Pepsi. Nonetheless it plays upon the persuasive motifs of turning around and becoming a part of something larger.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All cultural change reduces itself to a difference of categories. All revolutions, whether in the sciences or world history, occur... merely because spirit has changed its categories in order to understand and examine what belongs to it, in order to possess and grasp itself in a truer, deeper, more intimate and unified manner.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You can't change what happened between you and your ex-spouse, but you can change your attitude about it. Forgiveness doesn't mean... that what your ex did was right or that you condone what he or she did; it simply means that you no longer want to hold a grudge. Forgiveness is not a gift for the other person; it is a purely selfish act that allows you to put the past behind you.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The enormous social change involved in a sexual revolution is basically a matter of altered consciousness, the exposure and elimin...ation of social and psychological realities underlying political and cultural structures. We are speaking, then, of a cultural revolution, which, while it must necessarily involve the political and economic reorganization traditionally implied by the term revolution, must go far beyond this as well.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The doctrines of Christians and Jews are the closest of all the world's religions. Particularly in the bearing of religious faith ...upon social, political, economic, and cultural concerns in this world, the vocations of Jews and Christians are remarkably analogous. Both are narrative religions. Both are religions of The Book. Both religions teach respect for this world, for the flesh, for the concrete. Both religions instruct their members in a vocation not merely to escape from this world but to change this world. Both find the historical task of modernization a challenge, yet a challenge to be taken up in faith and in hope. More easily than any other of the major religions both seem to adjust--although not without enormous struggle--to modern urban life. Both have a commitment to intellect in its rational and scientific parts as well as its mystical, poetic, and intuitive parts.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The man who would change the name of Arkansas is the original, iron-jawed, brass-mouthed, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wil...ds of the Ozarks! He is the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam'd by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the smallpox on his mother's side!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... with every Asiatic country where we operate in cooperation with the existing culture, the need for intelligent understanding o...f that country and its ways of life will be crucial. These nations will very likely not respond to appeals with which we are familiar, and not value rewards which seem to us irresistible. The danger--and it would be fatal to world peace--is that in our ignorance of their cultural values we shall meet in head-on collision and incontinently fall back on the old pattern of imposing our own values by force.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Father Latour judged that, just as it was the white man's way to assert himself in any landscape, to change it, make it over a lit...tle (at least to leave some mark of memorial of his sojourn), it was the Indian's way to pass through a country without disturbing anything; to pass and leave no trace, like fish through the water, or birds through the air. It was the Indian manner to vanish into the landscape, not to stand out against it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »