Society Theories Quotes & Sayings

From day one it was like society was this violent, complicated dance and everybody had taken lessons but me. Knocked to the floor again, climbing to my feet each time, bloody and humiliated. Always met with disapproving faces, waiting for me to leave so I'd stop fucking up the party.
The wanted to push me outside, where the freaks huddled in the cold. Out there with the misfits, the broken, the glazed-eye types who can only watch as the normals enjoy their shiny new cars and careers and marriages and vacations with the kids.
The freaks spend their lives shambling around, wondering how they got left out, mumbling about conspiracy theories and bigfoot sightings. Their encounters with the world are marked by awkward conversations and stifled laughter, hidden smirks and rolled eyes. And worst of all, pity. — David Wong

The mere fact that so many who espouse such far-right views and beliefs still exist in this society is incarnate proof that Darwin's theories apply solely to biological processes and not to processes of the spirit. — Derek R. Audette

At any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a man say, "Life is not worth living." We regard it as we regard the statement that it is a fine day; nobody thinks that it can possibly have any serious effect on the man or on the world. And yet if that utterance were really believed, the world would stand on its head. Murderers would be given medals for saving men from life; firemen would be denounced for keeping men from death; poisons would be used as medicines; doctors would be called in when people were well; the Royal Humane Society would be rooted out like a horde of assassins. Yet we never speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist will strengthen or disorganize society; for we are convinced that theories do not matter. — G.K. Chesterton

Science fiction - and the correct shortcut is 'sf' - uses actual scientific facts or theories for the source ideas or framework of the story. It has some scientific content, however speculative. If it breaks a law of physics, it knows it's doing so and follows up the consequences. If it invents a society of aliens, it does so with some respect for and knowledge of the social sciences and what you might call social probabilities. And some of it is literarily self-aware enough to treat its metaphors as metaphors. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Pyramids, cathedrals, and rockets exist not because of geometry, theories of structures, or thermodynamics, but because they were first a picture- literally a vision-in the minds of those who built them. Society is where it is today because people had the perception; the images and the imagination; the creativity that the Arts provide, to make the world the place we live in today. — Eugene S. Ferguson

People think that the destructive theories that nowadays go by the name "socialism" are of recent origin. This is a mistake: these theories were contemporaneous with the first Economists. While they employed the all-powerful government of their dreams as an instrument to change the forms of society, socialists imagined seizing the same power to undermine its base. — Alexis De Tocqueville

If I want to understand an individual human being, I must lay aside all scientific knowledge of the average man and discard all theories in order to adopt a completely new and unprejudiced attitude. I can only approach the task of understanding with a free and open mind, whereas knowledge of man, or insight into human character, presupposes all sorts of knowledge about mankind in general. — C. G. Jung

The theories of the French revolutionaries, as summarized by historian Roger Hancock, were founded on respect for no humanity except that which they proposed to create.
In order to liberate mankind from tradition, the revolutionaries were ready to make him altogether the creature of a new society, to reconstruct his very humanity to meet the demands of the general will. — Ann Coulter

The real Machiavellian genius of the First Amendment is that free speech turns out to be mostly harmless - a lot of P.C. nit-picking, dingbat conspiracy theories, tedious libertarian screeds and name calling. The only "free speech" that has any effect in a stable, well-run plutocracy is the kind protected by Buckley vs. Valeo in the form of campaign contributions. — Tim Kreider

Perhaps our judgement of the purple woman was unfair. No doubt her theories concerning the "approach of the Teatro" made us all uneasy. But was this reason enough to cast her out from that artistic underworld which was the only society available to her? Like many societies, of course, ours was founded on fearful superstition, and this is always reason enough for any kind of behavior. She had been permanently stigmatized by too closely associating herself with something unclean in its essence. — Thomas Ligotti

Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue? — Alexander Hamilton

Only the guiding hand of the true and uncorrupted Nisirtu has allowed humanity to progress to its current state. The human cesspool in this country idle away their time texting or emailing or calling one another on their shiny toys to babble incessantly about every second of their miserable, directionless lives. It is like the grunting of pigs in pens. They send endless streams of photos of themselves to their slave friends. And do you know why they do this? Because their lives have so little meaning that they secretly wonder if they even exist. — Samuel Fort

But for the sake of simplicity we can speak about four dimensions: the way that evangelicals (1) adopted republican theories of politics, (2) took as their own democratic theories of society, (3) embraced liberal views of the economy (all discussed in this chapter), and (4) domesticated the Enlightenment for Christian purposes (examined in somewhat greater detail in the next chapter). — Mark A. Noll

Thus the criminal ceases to be a person, a subject of rights and duties, and becomes merely an object on which society can work. And this is, in principle, how Hitler treated the Jews. They were objects; killed not for ill desert but because, on his theories, they were a disease in society. If society can mend, remake, and unmake men at its pleasure, its pleasure may, of course, be humane or homicidal. The difference is important. But, either way, rulers have become owners. — C.S. Lewis

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. — John W. Gardner

Patriarchy has been the normal in almost all agricultural and industrial societies. ...If patriarchy in Afro-Asia resulted from some chance occurrence, why were the Aztecs and Incas patriarchal? It is far more likely that even though the precise definition of man and woman varies between cultures, there is some universal biological reason why almost all cultures valued manhood over womanhood. We do not know what this reason is; there are plenty of theories, none of the convincing. — Yuval Noah Harari

Despite the theories traditionally taught in high-school social studies, the truth is: the more primitive the society, the more leisured its way of life. — Peter Farb

PSYCHOSIS: A severe mental disorder, a derangement of personality. Some individuals experience mood swings and agitation, but emotional dampening and social withdrawal are the most common symptoms. Despite society's beliefs, psychotic individuals rarely become violent and are often at a much greater risk of causing harm to themselves than to others.8 There are many theories as to what causes psychosis. Many current theories agree that it is caused by a combination of inherited genetic factors and external environmental factors. — Alessandra Torre

The beliefs and behaviour of the Restoration reflect the theories of society put forward by Thomas Hobbes in The Leviathan, which was written in exile in Paris and published in 1651. Like many texts of the time, The Leviathan is an allegory. It recalls mediaeval rather than Renaissance thinking. The leviathan is the Commonwealth, society as a total organism, in which the individual is the absolute subject of state control, represented by the monarch. Man - motivated by self-interest - is acquisitive and lacks codes of behaviour. Hence the necessity for a strong controlling state, 'an artificial man', to keep discord at bay. Self-interest and stability become the keynotes of British society after 1660, the voice of the new middle-class bourgeoisie making itself heard more and more in the expression of values, ideals, and ethics. — Ronald Carter

To discover a society,' said I, 'erected on a strictly communistic basis.'

'Of all the wild extravagant theories!' began the Psychologist. — H.G.Wells

When dealing with Arab society, [we are dealing with] a production system that is in competition with others (and not with a theoretical opposition between specific economic rationalities), a social structure that must at all times prove its viability in the world arena (and not with its inner logic, which is theoretically as total, as elegant, and plausible as that of any other society whatever), a practical politics that is in perpetual disequilibrium (and not with elaborate theories about the best form of government), a language that must constantly prove its creativity and capacity for adaptation in competition with other languages in an accelerating evolutionary situation (and not with a theory of the language at a given moment of its evolution). — Abdallah Laroui

As an economic doctrine it does not stand up to scientific probing. Marx's economic theories are not a scientific account of the nature and extent of exploitation under capitalism. They nevertheless offer a vivid picture of an uncontrolled society in which the productive workers unconsciously create the instruments of their own oppression. It is a picture of human alienation, writ large as the dominance of past labour, or capital, over living labour. — Anonymous

The notion that a society could be regulated entirely by market forces is a utopian fantasy: an impossible dream generated by imagining what the world would be like if everyone's behavior was utterly consistent with some abstract moral ideal-in this case, economic theories that assume all human action is based on calculating, systematic, (but scrupulously law-abiding), greed. — David Graeber

Oh really?" Megan said while waggling her eyebrows. "What skills are we talking about and which room are they useful in?" Ella rolled her eyes at her little sister. "Megan, you just single handedly set the women's movement back twenty years." "Oh, Ella, on the contrary. The women's movement involves many theories of women taking back their sexual prowess in the bedroom as a way to challenge the dominant alpha male in the relationship. Seeing women as sexual equals is a very relevant and useful tool for the advancement of the equality for women in all realms of society. — Anie Michaels

on "idea technology"--Science creates ideas, science creates ways of understanding. And in the social sciences, ways of understanding ourselves. And they have an enormous influence on how we think, what we aspire to, and how we act. ......idea technology may be the most profoundly important technology that science gives us.......we do have to worry about the theories we have of human nature, because human nature will be changed by the theories we have that are designed to explain and help us understand human beings....it is only human nature to have a human nature that is very much the product of the society in which people live.
--TED The way we think about work is broken — Barry Schwartz

The two most far-reaching critical theories at the beginning of the latest phase of industrial society were those of Marx and Freud. Marx showed the moving powers and the conflicts in the social-historical process. Freud aimed at the critical uncovering of the inner conflicts. Both worked for the liberation of man, even though Marx's concept was more comprehensive and less time-bound than Freud's. — Erich Fromm

Till now, society has protected the adult and blamed the victim. It has been abetted in its blindness by theories, still in keeping with the pedagogical principles of our great- grandparents, according to which children are viewed as crafty creatures, dominated by wicked drives, who invent stories and attack their innocent parents or desire them sexually. In reality, children tend to blame themselves for their parents' cruelty and to absolve the parents, whom they invariably love, of all responsibility. — Alice Miller

Anyone who writes about Darwin's theory of evolutionin the singular, without segregating the theories of gradual evolution, common descent, speciation, and the mechanism of natural selection, will be quite unable to discuss the subject competently. — Ernst Mayr

And if Francoise then, inspired like a poet with a flood of confused reflections upon bereavement, grief, and family memories, were to plead her inability to rebut my theories, saying: "I don't know how to espress (sic) myself" - I would triumph over her with an ironical and brutal common sense worthy of Dr. Percepied; and if she went on: "All the same she was a geological (sic) relation; there is always the respect due to your geology (sic)," I would shrug my shoulders and say: "It is really very good of me to discuss the matter with an illiterate old woman who cannot speak her own language," adopting, to deliver judgment on Francoise, the mean and narrow outlook of the pedant, whom those who are most contemptuous of him in the impartiality of their own minds are only too prone to copy when they are obliged to play a part upon the vulgar stage of life. — Marcel Proust

Like all social theories, internationalism must seek its basis in the economic and technical fields; here are to be found the most profound and the most decisive factors in the development of society. — Christian Lous Lange

Humankind does not submit passively to the power of nature. It takes control over this power. This process is not an internal or subjective one. It takes place objectively in practice, once women cease to be viewed as mere sexual beings, once we look beyond their biological functions and become conscious of their weight as an active social force. What's more, woman's consciousness of herself is not only a product of her sexuality. It reflects her position as determined by the economic structure of society, which in turn expresses the level reached by humankind in technological development and the relations between classes.

The importance of dialectical materialism lies in going beyond the inherent limits of biology, rejecting simplistic theories about our being slaves to the nature of our species, and, instead, placing facts in their social and economic context. — Thomas Sankara

The flowering of human society depends on two factors: the intellectual power of outstanding men to conceive sound social and economic theories, and the ability of these or other men to make these ideologies palatable to the majority. — Ludwig Von Mises

The full implications of feminism will evolve over time, as we organize, experiment, think, analyze, and revise our ideas and strategies in light of our experiences. No theory emerges in full detail overnight; the dominant theories of our day have expanded and changed over many decades. That it will take time should not discourage us. That we might fail to pursue our ideas - given the enormous need for them in society today - is unconscionable. — Charlotte Bunch

If I didn't fear I'd do you harm...I'd try to make you an atheist. I really do think that you are a deluded follower of mistaken and superstitious and cowardly theories. That's as far as I'll go....Everyone who worships a god worships a force back of all nature, no matter what they call him or it and even if they call his aspects by different names & have many "gods." If there really is such a force, then all people who worship any god or gods, worship the same god. I'd just as soon call him Ishtar or Baal or Jehovah. They're merely names for the same idea. (Letter from Simpson to Anne Roe, written ca. 1920-21, when Anne was briefly flirting with fundamentalist Christianity, American Philosophical Society archives.) — George Gaylord Simpson

One of the greatest sources of problems in our society arises from people having loads of wrong theories in their heads - often theories that are critical of others - that they won't test by speaking to the relevant people about them. Instead, they talk behind people's backs, which leads to pervasive misinformation. — Ray Dalio

Science requires a society because even people who are trying to be good thinkers love their own thoughts and theories - much of the debugging has to be done by others. — Alan Kay

The concept of individual rights is so new in human history that most men have not grasped it fully to this day. In accordance with the two theories of ethics, the mystical or the social, some men assert that rights are a gift of God
others, that rights are a gift of society. But, in fact, the source of rights is man's nature. — Ayn Rand

It is said culture requires slaves. I say that no cultured society can be built with slaves. This terrible Twentieth Century has made all cultural theories from Plato down seem ridiculous. Little man, there has never been a human culture. — Wilhelm Reich

The vast differences in power contributed to faulty social theories of these differences that are still with us today. When a society is economically dominant, it is easy for its members to assume that such dominance reflects a deeper superiority
whether religious, racial, genetic, cultural, or institutional
rather than an accident of timing or geography. — Jeffrey D. Sachs