Contemporary Society Quotes

“Liberal attitudes towards the other are characterized both by respect for otherness, openness to it, and an obsessive fear of harassment. In short, the other is welcomed insofar as its presence is not intrusive, insofar as it is not really the other. Tolerance thus coincides with its opposite. My duty to be tolerant towards the other effectively means that I should not get too close to him or her, not intrude into his space—in short, that I should respect his intolerance towards my over-proximity. This is increasingly emerging as the central human right of advanced capitalist society: the right not to be ‘harassed’, that is, to be kept at a safe distance from others.”
― Slavoj Žižek, Against Human Rights

“[novan]: bassists are very good with their fingers
[novan]: and some of us sing backup vocals, so that means we're good with our mouths too...

(~ IM chat with Novan Chang, 18, bassist)”
― Jess C Scott, EyeLeash: A Blog Novel

“This is the Modern Man. The man who seeks himself without ever seeking, because he does not want to find;
The man who does not hesitate to criticize the other, although he behaves in the same way;”
― Cristiane Serruya, The Modern Man: A philosophical divagation about the evil banality of daily acts

“So you've been gone a couple days,' Alison said. 'Hmm, what'd you miss...A celebrity did drugs. Politicians disagreed. A different celebrity wore a bikini that revealed a bodily imperfection. A team won a sporting event, but another team lost.' I smiled. 'You can't go disappearing on everybody like this, Hazel. You miss too much.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“The trouble with this country...is that we are utterly surrounded by busybodies trying to stop us doing things. Or telling us what to do...Big Brother, with his ubiquitous closed-circuit cameras-which now monitored, it seemed, every square inch of public space-and his condescending imprecations and warnings, was everywhere...In his view, it was up to the individual whether or not to approach a cliff edge; it was not the Government's business.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“… he always went straight to the machines and in a strange way it was released to because having to talk with someone, even the smallest, most casual talks, was sometimes quite hard because you always felt they judged you or you always felt shy or that you were saying a stupid or wrong thing.

The pitfalls of human exchange, Sophia said.”
― Ali Smith, Winter

“… he always went straight to the machines and in a strange way it was a relief to because having to talk with someone, even the smallest, most casual talks, was sometimes quite hard because you always felt they judged you or you always felt shy or that you were saying a stupid or wrong thing.

The pitfalls of human exchange, Sophia said.”
― Ali Smith