Mary Douglas Quotes
If you want to change the culture, you will have to start by changing the organization.
The history of the Church of Rome is a constant leakage of members into such breakaway cults, which go on splitting.
Enclave life becomes very tense, Even when they do elect a leader, the factions remain, with the threat of splitting off.
Our technological infrastructure alienates us from each other. No need to form a workplace community, everybody there will be out in a year or two, and so will you, looking for a better place.
Where there is dirt there is system. Dirt is the byproduct of a systematic ordering and classification of matter.
It seems true that the growth of science and secularism made organized Christianity feel under threat.
Inequality can have a bad downside, but equality, for its part, sure does get in the way of coordination.
Institutions have the pathetic megalomania of the computer whose whole vision of the world is its own program.
If people want to compete for leadership of a religious group, they can compete in piety. A chilling thought. Or funny.
Yes, disappointment over perceived unfairness, injustice, promises not kept, tends to go hand in hand with increasing prosperity. Expectations are dashed. What can I say!
I am convinced that living in an enclave shapes the personality, and living alone shapes the personality too.
The theory of cultural bias... is the idea that a culture is based on a particular form of organization. It can't be transplanted except to another variant of that organization.
Behind a leader there must be followers, but they should always be on the lookout for the main chance and ready to change sides if the current leader doesn't deliver.
I have increasingly, over the years, felt that religion today does our civilization more harm than good.
Since 1970, relationships can be more volatile, jobs more ephemeral, geographical mobility more intensified, stability of marriage weaker.
I am sure it must be true that people opt out of the mainstream society because they feel that there are going to be no rewards for them, if they stay.
It is only partly true that religion does more harm than good in society. The community makes God into the image it wants, vengeful, or milky sweet, or scrupulously just, and so on.
It is very reasonable to worry about the harm done by organized religion, and to prefer looser and more private arrangements.
Some scholars have been arguing that a civilizational clash between organized religions is the next step in human history.
It's unlikely that the organized religions will get more sectarian... or is it? I am not at all sure.
Just in our lifetime our society has become looser and more private, it becomes extremely difficult to hold to any permanent commitment whatever, least of all to organized religion.
