Red > Red's Quotes

“After a few Republicans on the Houston city council supported the Democratic majority's proposal that stalled cars be towed immediately off the city's notoriously clotted freeways, local Republican officials promised retribution. 'We're not looking for council members who are going to go along and get along,' said Jared Woodfill, chairman of the Harris County Republican Party. 'We're looking for council members who are going to stand up for conservative values.' Surely, political ideology has teetered over some high cliff when towing can be described as a 'value.' What's next, a doctrine of potholes, the water pressure credo?”
― Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart

“The Army might screw you and your girlfriend might dump you and the enemy might kill you, but the shared commitment to safeguard one another’s lives is unnegotiable and only deepens with time. The willingness to die for another person is a form of love that even religions fail to inspire, and the experience of it changes a person profoundly.”
― Sebastian Junger, War

“human beings need three basic things in order to be content: they need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to feel connected to others. These values are considered "intrinsic" to human happiness and far outweigh "extrinsic" values such as beauty, money and status.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. It's time for that to end.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“War is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.”
― Sebastian Junger, War

“Society can give its young men almost any job and they'll figure how to do it. They'll suffer for it and die for it and watch their friends die for it, but in the end, it will get done. That only means that society should be careful about what it asks for. ... Soldiers themselves are reluctant to evaluate the costs of war, but someone must. That evaluation, ongoing and unadulterated by politics, may be the one thing a country absolutely owes the soldiers who defend its borders.”
― Sebastian Junger, War

“Combat isn't where you might die -- though that does happen -- it's where you find out whether you get to keep on living. Don't underestimate the power of that revelation. Don't underestimate the things young men will wager in order to play that game one more time.”
― Sebastian Junger, War

“The public is often accused of being disconnected from its military, but frankly it's disconnected from just about everything. Farming, mineral extraction, gas and oil production, bulk cargo transport, logging, fishing, infrastructure construction—all the industries that keep the nation going are mostly unacknowledged by the people who depend on them most.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“Maybe the ultimate wound is the one that makes you miss the war you got it in.”
― Sebastian Junger

“The army consists of the first infantry division and eight million replacements.”
― Sebastian Junger, War

“In this sense, littering is an exceedingly petty version of claiming a billion-dollar bank bailout or fraudulently claiming disability payments. When you throw trash on the ground, you apparently don’t see yourself as truly belonging to the world that you’re walking around in. And when you fraudulently claim money from the government, you are ultimately stealing from your friends, family, and neighbors—or somebody else’s friends, family, and neighbors. That diminishes you morally far more than it diminishes your country financially.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“The cause doesn't have to be righteous and battle doesn't have to be winnable; but over and over again throughout history, men have chosen to die in battle with their friends rather than to flee on their own and survive.”
― Sebastian Junger, War

“How do you become an adult in a society that doesn’t ask for sacrifice? How do you become a man in a world that doesn’t require courage?”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“What would you risk dying for—and for whom—is perhaps the most profound question a person can ask themselves. The vast majority of people in modern society are able to pass their whole lives without ever having to answer that question, which is both an enormous blessing and a significant loss.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“When people are actively engaged in a cause their lives have more purpose... with a resulting improvement in mental health,”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“Today's veterans often come home to find that, although they're willing to die for their country, they're not sure how to live for it.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“In effect, humans have dragged a body with a long hominid history into an overfed, malnourished, sedentary, sunlight-deficient, sleep-deprived, competitive, inequitable, and socially-isolating environment with dire consequences.” The”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“It may be worth considering whether middle-class American life—for all its material good fortune—has lost some essential sense of unity that might otherwise discourage alienated men from turning apocalyptically violent.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“Because modern society has almost completely eliminated trauma and violence from everyday life, anyone who does suffer those things is deemed to be extraordinarily unfortunate. This gives people access to sympathy and resources but also creates an identity of victimhood that can delay recovery.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“If you want to make a society work, then you don’t keep underscoring the places where you’re different—you underscore your shared humanity,”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“When you throw trash on the ground, you apparently don't see yourself as truly belonging to the world that you're walking in.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“I know what coming back to America from a war zone is like because I’ve done it so many times. First, there’s a kind of shock at the comfort and affluence that we enjoy, but that is followed by the dismal realization that we live in a society that is basically at war with itself. People speak with incredible contempt about, depending on their views: the rich, the poor, the educated, the foreign born, the President, or the entire US government. It is a level of contempt that is usually reserved for enemies in wartime except that now it is applied to our fellow citizens. Unlike criticism, contempt is particularly toxic because it assumes a moral superiority in the speaker. Contempt is often directed at people who have been excluded from a group or declared unworthy its benefits. Contempt is often used by governments to provide rhetorical cover for torture or abuse. Contempt is one of four behaviors that, statistically, can predict divorce in married couples. People who speak with contempt for one another will probably not remain united for long.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“An earthquake achieves what the law promises but does not in practice maintain," one of the survivors wrote. "The equality of all men".”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging