Benjamin R. Barber > Quotes

“I don't divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures, those who make it or those who don't. I divide the world into learners and non-learners.”
― Benjamin Barber

“After September 11, some critics even tried to lump the antiglobalization protesters in with the terrorists, casting them as irresponsible destabilizers of the world order. But the protesters are the children of McWorld, and their objections are not Jihadic but merely democratic. Their grievances concern not world order but world disorder, and if the young demonstrators are a little foolish in their politics, a little naive in their analysis, and a little short on viable solutions, they understand with a sophistication their leaderes apparently lack that globalization's current architecture breeds anarchy, nihilism, and violence.”
― Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld

“Hollywood is McWorld's storyteller, and it inculcates secularism, passivity, consumerism, vicariousness, impulse buying, and an accelerated pace of life, not as a result of its overt themes and explicit story lines but by virtue of what Hollywood is and how its products are consumed.”
― Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld

“I don't divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures. I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners.”
― Benjamin Barber

“How is it that when we see politics permeate every life sector we call it totalitarianism and when we see religion everywhere we call it theocracy, but when commerce dominates everything we call it liberty?”
― Benjamin Barber

“Scientists will say with conviction - and they are right - that "there are no technical or economic barriers to achieving sustainability." ... Many [market players] understand the science of climate change perfectly well; they are not deniers and don't need to be. They are not ignorant, certainly not stupid; they are simply driven by interests at odds with sustainability or climate justice. What's good for them and what's good for the planet are just not the same.”
― Benjamin R. Barber, Cool Cities: Urban Sovereignty and the Fix for Global Warming

“Global inequality means that while the wealthy have too few needs, the needy have too little wealth. Capitalism is stymied, courting long-term disaster.”
― Benjamin Barber

“...defining what is important solely by what can be measured is a bad idea - like looking for lost keys not down a dark sidewalk where they were lost, but across the street under the lamppost where the light is better.”
― Benjamin R. Barber, Cool Cities: Urban Sovereignty and the Fix for Global Warming