Social Criticism Quotes

“Much of what is today called "social criticism" consists of members of the upper classes denouncing the tastes of the lower classes (bawdy entertainment, fast food, plentiful consumer goods) while considering themselves egalitarians.”
― Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

“The United States is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, yet its inhabitants are strikingly unhappy. Accordingly, we present to the rest of mankind, on a planet rife with suffering and tragedy, the spectacle of a clown civilization. Sustained on a clown diet rich in sugar and fat, we have developed a clown physiognomy. We dress like clowns. We move about a landscape filled with cartoon buildings in clownmobiles, absorbed in clownish activities. We fill our idle hours enjoying the canned antics of professional clowns... Death, when we acknowledge it, is just another pratfall on the boob tube. Bang! You're dead!”
― James Howard Kunstler

“Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“Indeed, bribery, favoritism, and corruption in a great variety of forms were rampant not only in politics, but in all levels of society.”
― David McCullough, 1776

“Behold the complacent salesman retailing the Good and True.
One can even buy a so-called Religion, which is really but common
morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her
accessories and what remains behind? Yet the trusts thrive marvelously,
for the prices are absurdly cheap,--a prayer for a ticket to heaven,
a diploma for an honorable citizenship.Hide yourself under a bushel
quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would
soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer.”
― Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea

“I think drama has to push things to extremes so that we can understand what we are doing in our society.”
― Edward Bond

“A man who hides himself, confesses as evidently the superiority of his enemy, as another, who fairly delivers his arms.”
― David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

“But this is the power of storytelling, isn’t it? To make sense of the things we can’t figure out ourselves. We make up gods and monsters and origin stories and archetypes and tell each other it’s all explainable so we don’t have to feel the weight of the unknown. That’s the theory anyway. The practice is that we’re all so much better at seeing the faults of others, at watching them make their mistakes and judging from afar, our social telescopes so much more powerful than the microscopes we forget to use on ourselves.”
― Eda J. Vor, Fully Functioning: a postpartum descent into obsessive fangirling

“For every thought leader who offered advice on how to build a career in a merciless new economy, there were many less-heard critics aspiring to make the economy less merciless.”
― Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World

“By failing to take note of the gifts of modernity, social critics poison voters against responsible custodians and incremental reformers who can consolidate the tremendous progress we have enjoyed and strengthen the conditions that will bring us more.”
― Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

“The real function of some solutions is to create or perpetuate a problem.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“A book can be read to you, not for you.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“After all, what is a dollar but paper? A bullet can save your life. Bullets make weapons more significant, and that makes you more significant.

A man's life - what is that worth? Another man exists only to the degree that he stands in your way. Life doesn't mean much, but it's better to take it from the enemy before he has time to deliver a blow.”
― Ryszard Kapuściński, The Emperor

“Usually it is said that periodic droughts cause bad crops and therefore starvation. But it is the elites of starving countries that propagate this idea. It is a false idea. The unjust or mistaken allocation of funds and national property is the most frequent source of hunger. There was a lot of grain in Ethiopia, but it had first been hidden by the rich and then thrown on the market at a doubled price, inaccessible to peasants and the poor.”
― Ryszard Kapuściński, The Emperor

“We are often, if not usually, greeted mainly, or even merely, as an attempt to stop us from looking at the person greeting us, at least for a bit.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Getting something or someone we want is often a guaranteed way to eventually stop us from wanting it, him, or her.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Our cars are turning into smartphones with wheels.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Because of poverty, many a man who is not into men sometimes finds, or once found, himself inside a man.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“violence is so american
violence is pretty girls
guns ‘n danger
rape, murder, ‘n mayhem
tv
above all
eats us up
‘n
spits
us out
tells us lies
we willingly believe”
― Scott C. Holstad, Places

“i'm still waiting for someone to kick in the groove wake us up get the juices flowing and you know the shit gets more stale a little more square every day and we're diggin our own grave jumpin in head first and still we cry out for leaders to take us away start the groove over but the tunes are the same doesn't really matter where you start.”
― Scott C. Holstad

“I woke last night from a nightmare in which I saw a malignant society of pathological liars racked with insecurities, consumed by guilt, screaming for violence and I noticed I was sweating most profusely as I thanked the heavens above that it was only a dream before turning on the light to get a cigarette.”
― Scott C. Holstad

“anyway i saw it coming from the rooftops. they said the second coming was heading our way tomorrow’s world today force fed to us in a tobacco-colored spoon keep us entertained – content - oppressed. we prayed, friend, and they brought it down.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Big Head Press Broadside Poem Collection

“feeling the fear
hysteria
in mass murder
town

83-year-old woman
shot thru eye

convenience clerk
nothing taken
says
it’s pointless
junked out killer on
lam
killing for
art’s sake

THIS is my art
judge me
now.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Big Head Press Broadside Poem Collection

“[...]; soon the day would come, if not already arrived, in which the privilege of being in any way disconnected from the rest of Humanity would be reserved only for the wealthy, who can purchase with their riches the isolation and quiet denied to us mere rabble.”
― K.W. Jeter, Grim Expectations

“El problema de nuestra sociedad, es que necesitamos siempre de alguien que esté peor para que nos recuerde que no estamos tan mal. Pero eso no cambia que estamos aún peor.”
― Juan Viale Rigo, Último Año

“El problema de nuestra sociedad es que necesitamos siempre de alguien que esté peor para que nos recuerde que no estamos tan mal. Pero eso no cambia que estamos aún peor.”
― Juan Viale Rigo, Último Año

“El problema de nuestra sociedad es que necesitamos siempre de alguien que esté peor, para que nos recuerde que no estamos tan mal. Pero eso no cambia el lugar en donde estamos, solo hace más llevadera nuestra miseria.”
― Juan Viale Rigo, Último Año

“El problema de nuestra sociedad, es que aún cuando estamos a abajo, necesitamos de alguien que esté peor para que nos recuerde que no estamos tan mal. Pero eso no cambia el lugar en donde estamos, solo hace más llevadera nuestra miseria.”
― Juan Viale Rigo, Último Año

“El problema de nuestra sociedad, es que aún cuando estamos abajo, necesitamos de alguien que esté peor para que nos recuerde que no estamos tan mal. Pero eso no cambia el lugar en donde estamos, solo hace más llevadera nuestra miseria.”
― Juan Viale Rigo, Último Año

“Tom Durrie (b. 1931) is a school critic, a nonagenarian giant, and a poster boy for longevity and vitality of a happy brain. His biography is rich beyond description, and reflects Durrie's infinite passion for life. His CV would suffice to fill in a few lifetimes, and is the best testimony that a rich and productive life is a self-sustaining process. Inspired by A.S. Neill (Summerhill 1960), Durrie found his own formula for free learning. Durrie has tried teaching in traditional and in alternative schools (for a sum total of over a decade). He was also a headmaster of a free school for a while. In 1966, the analysis of his teaching experience provides a unique insight into the impact of freedom on behavior and mental health of students. His text, published 54 years late (2020), can be found here: "Free learning in a public school". Durrie's three successful children received minimal schooling. None attended high school. Over decades of his analysis and interests, Durrie noticed cyclical processes, in which the school system tightens its grip on children and then enters a period of rebellion, and seeking new solutions only to fall back again into its hungry propensity for limiting child freedoms.”
― Piotr Wosniak,