— Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (1967)
— Jacob Burckchardt
I first came across a quote by the author, Camille de Toledo, here on tumblr and just had to read up on him and his ideas. It did not take long to want to read this book, which it’s title perfectly makes the content foreshadowed, and while I am barely 20 pages in, I find it to be darkly poetic and refreshingly lucid.
“The hyper-individualism bred by the belief that everything was spectacular and that the spectacle was everything ended up creating a world of prefabricated non-conformity, a community of snide smugness where one made provocative remarks that sounded subversive on the surface, but were merely jaded. I belonged to that world.”
“The only difference is that you are hired slaves instead of block slaves.” - Emma Goldman on wage slavery.
Growing up in a poor neighborhood significantly reduces the chances that a child will graduate from high school, according to a study published in the current (October) issue of the American Sociological Review. And the longer a child lives in that kind of neighborhood, the more harmful the impact.
The study by sociologists Geoffrey Wodtke and David Harding of the University of Michigan and Felix Elwert of the University of Wisconsin is the first to capture the cumulative impact of growing up in America’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods on a key educational outcome: high school graduation.
— Will Durant, American writer, historian, and philosopher (1885-1981), Caesar and Christ, Epilogue, p. 665 (1944)
— Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (1848)
Social Engineering in the 20th Century explores the rise of mechanistic philosphy and the exploitation of human beings under modern hierarhical systems. Topics covered include behaviorism, scientific management, work-place democracy, schooling, frustration-aggression hypothesis and human experimentation.
The film includes original interviews with: “Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Rebecca Lemov (“World as Laboratory”), Christopher Simpson (“The Science of Coercion”), George Ritzer (“The McDonaldization of Society”), Morris Berman (“The Reenchantment of the World”), John Taylor Gatto (“Dumbing us Down”), Alfie Kohn (“What does it mean to be well educated?”) and others.
The ruling elite has created social institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance.
by Bruce E. Levine
Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination.
Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it. A 2010 Gallup poll asked Americans “Do you think the Social Security system will be able to pay you a benefit when you retire?” Among 18- to 34-years-olds, 76 percent of them said no. Yet despite their lack of confidence in the availability of Social Security for them, few have demanded it be shored up by more fairly payroll-taxing the wealthy; most appear resigned to having more money deducted from their paychecks for Social Security, even though they don’t believe it will be around to benefit them.
How exactly has American society subdued young Americans? … (read more: AlterNet)
— Oscar Wilde (via neusdadt)
fucknopoverty:likethievesinthenight:
The End of Poverty? Trailer
“Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” - Nelson Mandela
— Diderot, 1774 (via soreciety)
