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Alienation Quotes

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Alienation Quotes

“They don't tell you about the curse of travelling. You went out there and saw the colors, tasted the wine, saw the chaos. You expanded our minds until they couldn't fit back into these little boxes people call ‘NORMAL lives.' Now, the local gossip feels petty. The 9-to-5 feels like a cage. It’s the curse of the wanderer. You fit in everywhere, so you don't fit in anywhere.”

PerspectiveTransformationAlienationWanderlustSensory OverloadThe Cost Of SeeingWorldview BreakTravel NoirThe New StrangerForeign Saturation
Book:Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”
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“La forma-mercancía, o sea la determinación social de las cosas como mercancías, en la moderna sociedad burguesa se ha convertido en forma universal debido a que el capitalismo ha hecho de la fuerza de trabajo una mercancía de la cual sus portadores disponen libremente: esto es, libres de dependencias personales, libres de toda coacción, menos de la que los obliga a ganar dinero. Pero esa coacción impersonal es universal, de modo que el dinero se ha convertido en la sola finalidad de todo trabajo y la venta de la propia fuerza de trabajo en forma predominante de reproducción. En la sociedad mercantil, la satisfacción de cualquier necesidad concreta depende del dinero. La necesidad de disponer del máximo posible de dinero se convierte así en el primer "interés propio", igual para todos los miembros de la sociedad, aunque lo tengan que perseguir compitiendo unos con otros como mónadas económicas. Los sujetos del intercambio mercantil, libres e iguales en tal sentido abstracto, se imaginan a sí mismos como individuos autónomos que se ganan honradamente el sustento con su trabajo.”

CapitalismAlienationSubjectivityCommodity FetishismValue CriticismAbstract Labor
Book:El absurdo mercado de los hombres sin cualidades: Ensayos sobre el fetichismo de la mercancía
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“La forma-mercancía, o sea la determinación social de las cosas como mercancías, en la moderna sociedad burguesa se ha convertido en forma universal debido a que el capitalismo ha hecho de la fuerza de trabajo una mercancía de la cual sus portadores disponen libremente: esto es, libres de dependencias personales, libres de toda coacción, menos de la que los obliga a ganar dinero. Pero esa coacción impersonal es universal, de modo que el dinero se ha convertido en la sola finalidad de todo trabajo y la venta de la propia fuerza de trabajo en forma predominante de reproducción. En la sociedad mercantil, la satisfacción de cualquier necesidad concreta depende del dinero. La necesidad de disponer del máximo posible de dinero se convierte así en el primer "interés propio", igual para todos los miembros de la sociedad, aunque lo tengan que perseguir compitiendo unos con otros como mónadas económicas. Los sujetos del intercambio mercantil, libres e iguales en tal sentido abstracto, se imaginan a sí mismos como individuos autónomos que se ganan honradamente el sustento trabajando.”

CapitalismAlienationSubjectivityCommodity FetishismValue Criticism
Book:El absurdo mercado de los hombres sin cualidades: Ensayos sobre el fetichismo de la mercancía
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“Am I alone in an ensconced inner world where I obsessively worry about what happens to me, where the story of personal survival becomes the central theme of my shallow existence? I think not. Swaddled in our own brand of strangeness, we all struggle to come to terms with our demonstrated personal shortcomings. Our yearned-for life of living in pink skyways far removed from harm’s way is depressingly marked in contrast by our actual crabby existence spent scuttling along akin to a smug lobster, scrunched down on the asphalt streets, working in the city grid as frumpy members of the faceless mob.”

Meaning Of LifeAlienationExistential CrisisExistentialistExistential AngstMeaningful LivingExistential AnguishExistential QuestionsExistential Alienation
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“Carl Schmitt could boast with some justice that the Nazi revolution was orderly and disciplined. But the reason lies not so much within the Nazis themselves as in the lack of an effective opposition. For millions the Nazi ideology did assuage their anxiety, did end their alienation, and did give hope for a better future. Other millions watched passively, not deeply committed to resistance. "Let them have a chance" was a typical attitude. Hitler took the chance and made the most of it.”

HopeFutureElectionConformityAlienationNazismHitlerPopular OpinionPolitical Apathy
Book:Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich
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“. . . surely that is the main thing, tranquility, this is what this person seeks in the desired distance, some tranquility from the unspeakably oppressive, painful, insane disquiet that seizes him whenever he happens to think of his starting point, that infinitely foreign land where he is now, and from where he must leave, because everything here is intolerable, cold, sad, bleak, and deadly . . .”

ChaosFascismAlienationAmerican Nightmare
Book:The World Goes On
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“I lean back and tilt my head so all I see are the clouds in the sky. I'm looking back inside my head with my eyes wide open. I still don't know where I'm going; I decided I'm not crazy or alien. It's just that I'm more like one of those kids they find in remote jungles or forests []. A wolf child. And they've dragged me into this fucking schizo-culture, snarling and spitting and walking around on curled knuckles.”

CultureRageBelongingAlienationQueerRabid
Book:The Waterfront Journals
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“So... Dell had been a good boy with bad friends. I knew this – I used to be one of them. I’d always known Dell would disappear one day; he was too decent, too golden. This place never tainted that, and I don’t know why. He made me feel dirty. Dark and corrupt. It hadn’t always that way, and I don’t know when it changed... but I felt it now. I only knew I couldn’t hold onto him tight enough to stop those long legs carrying him away somewhere better. A day’ll come when everybody’s had you and nobody wants you anymore... As Dell drove Erin away in their rent-a-car from the Holiday Inn into the early evening traffic, I felt the walls closing in, the world swelling around me, and I knew that day had finally come. Tomorrow, I leave Paradise. It’s true. Shanise was right. I turned away as the car disappeared up the slushy street. That was the last time I saw them alive.”

LoveDeathHurtHollywoodRejectionLost LoveWoundedDrugsLeft BehindAlienationBest Friends
Book:City of Paradise
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“A “bubble culture” develops whereby corporate types associate with other corporate types in corporate suburbs. The artists flee to their own enclaves. This process culminates in the self-imposed ghetto, a system whereby suburbs are defined and characterised by the people who live there.”

FriendshipGroupsDivisionAlienationPolarizationGhetto QuotesSocial CirclesBubble Culture
Book:Us vs Them: A Case for Social Empathy
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“Trump and others on the right want to make sure that working-class white men don’t want to go to college and distrust those who do, and conservative educators want to make sure that people from marginalized communities don’t want to go either. All of this works by design. It is to ensure that enough of us keep our heads down, focus on surviving our nine-to-five jobs, don’t ask questions, and don’t demand more from a system that owes us a lot. The death of American higher education will harm the most vulnerable of us first, but its goal is not to harm or oppress only us—that work is fully implanted in all our systems. Its goal is to continue to oppress and exploit white supremacy’s most powerful tool: the angry white working-class man.”

CollegeApathyWhite SupremacyAlienationHigher EducationAngry White Males
Book:Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America
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“To believe that the intolerable crime is to burn a few cars and rob some shops, whereas to kill a young man is trivial, is typically in keeping with what Marx regarded as the principal alienation of capitalism: the primacy of things over existence, of commodities over life and machines over workers”

MenBelieveYoungExistenceCarCrimeCapitalismMachinesWorkersYoung ManShopsPrincipalCommodityAlienationPrimacy
Book:The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings
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“With my work I attempt to help man to overcome his alienation; I do this by surrounding his daily life with objects, which confront him in a tactile way with the final and deepest problems of our existence. I want the means that I employ to create the necessary stimulus to be as direct as possible. Instead of giving a sermon on humility, I often prefer to depict humility itself.”

MenWayWantGivingMeanHelpingProblemExistenceObjectsHumilityDirectOvercomingFinalsDaily LifeSermonsAlienationStimulusTactile
Author:Antoni Tapies
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“Lacan , Derrida and Foucault are the perfect prophets for the weak, anxious academic personality, trapped in verbal formulas and perennially defeated by circumstances. They offer a self-exculpating cosmic explanation for the normal professorial state of resentment, alienation, dithering passivity and inaction.”

SelfStatesPerfectPersonalityCircumstancesOffersNormalWeakExplanationProphetFormulasAnxiousCosmicAcademicResentmentTrappedDefeatedAlienationInactionPassivityLacanDerrida
Author:Camille Paglia
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“It was in reading Tristam Shandy that I noticed how it is primarily men who gravitate towards the game-playing self-reflexive style. There is an alienation from emotion in it, a Nervous Nelly fear of letting go and being "exposed." As an attitude towards life, it betrays a perpetual adolescence. Those who hurled themselves after Derrida were not the most sophisticated but the most pretentious, and least creative members of my generation of academics.”

MenSelfReadingGamesEmotionAttitudeCreativeGenerationsStyleLetting GoMembersNervousExposedBetrayPerpetualSophisticatedAdolescenceAlienationMy GenerationPretentiousAttitude Towards LifeDerrida
Author:Camille Paglia
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“In the Germany of the l920s, the Weimar Republic, both orga­nismic biology and Gestalt psychology were part of a larger intellectual trend that saw itself as a protest movement against the increasing fragmentation and alienation of human nature. The entire Weimar culture was characterized by an antimechanistic outlook, a "hunger for wholeness". Organismic biology, Gestalt psychology, ecology, and, later on, general systems theory all grew out of this holistic zeitgeist.”

HumansCulturePsychologySawsHuman NatureMovementTheoryGrewIntellectualHungerGermanyProtestBiologyRepublicTrendsEcologyWholenessOutlookAlienationHolisticZeitgeistFragmentationGestaltSystems TheoryProtest Movements
Author:Fritjof Capra
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“Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent.”

PeopleIdeasNationsCommonProjectsIntellectualWeakLogicSilentOppressionFeaturesPropagandaRegimesNew IdeasDistrustPersistentAlienationRelentlessAssertionAuthoritarianismIntimidationLightnessInconsistencyFree ThoughtDuetsStasisTotalitarian Regimes
Author:Aung San Suu Kyi
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“Although until recently the Church was closely linked to the established order, it is beginning to take a different attitude regarding the exploitation, oppression, and alienation which prevails in Latin America. This has caused concern among the beneficiaries and defenders of capitalist society, who no longer can depend on what used to be - whether consciously or unconsciously - one of their mainstays.”

DifferentAmericaUsedOrderChurchAttitudeDependsConcernOppressionUsed To BeLatinCapitalistExploitationLinkedAlienationLatin AmericaDefendersBeneficiariesDifferent Attitude
Book:Teología de la liberación
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“What outsiders discover in their adventures on the other side of the looking glass is the courage to repudiate self-contempt and recognise their “alienation” as a precious gift of freedom from arbitrary norms that they did not make and did not sanction. At the moment a person questions the validity of the rules, the victim is no longer a victim.”

PersonsSelfMomentsSidesAdventureVictimGlassesContemptOutsidersNormArbitraryAlienationSanctionsRecogniseValidityPrecious Gifts
Author:Jamake Highwater
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“There is convincing evidence that the search for solitude is not a luxury but a biological need. Just as humans posses a herding instinct that keeps us close to others most of the time, we also have a conflicting drive to seek out solitude. If the distance between ourselves and others becomes too great, we experience isolation and alienation, yet if the proximity to others becomes too close, we feel smothered and trapped.”

IfsNeedsFeelsHumansSolitudeEvidenceDistanceInstinctLuxuryIsolationTrappedConvincingAlienationProximityPosseConvincing Evidence
Author:Bill Vaughan
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“As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son's future are counting on me.”

ThinkingMenMotherAcceptingSonProudDiscoveryMy SonBe ProudAlienationBe A ManCountingMother And SonDemeaningWomanly
Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier
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“I believe - I know (there are not many things I should care to dogmatize about, on the subject of writing) that writers need solitude, and seek alienation of a kind every day of their working lives. (And remember, they are not even aware when and when not they are working.) ... The tension between standing apart and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer.”

KnowsNeedsShouldWritingBelieveKindCareRememberI BelieveSubjectsInvolvedSolitudeStandingTensionAlienationWorking LifeStanding Apart
Book:Selected Stories
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“To write about the monstrous sense of alienation the poet feels in this culture of polarized hatreds is a way of staying sane. With the poem, I reach out to an audience equally at odds with official policy, and I celebrate our mutual humanness in an inhuman world.”

WorldWayFeelsWritingCultureAudiencePolicyPoetHatredCelebrateOfficialsStayingMutualReach OutSaneOddsAlienationMonstrousInhumanHumanness
Book:Always Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry
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“The culture and educational system of the contemporary West are based almost exclusively upon the training of the reasoning brain and, to a lesser degree, of the aesthetic emotions. Most of us have forgotten that we are not only brain and will, senses and feelings; we are also spirit. Modern man has for the most part lost touch with the truest and highest aspect of himself; and the result of this inward alienation can be seen all too plainly in his restlessness, his lack of identity and his loss of hope.”

MenFeelingsSpiritCultureLostLossResultsEmotionBrainModernIdentityDegreesHighestTrainingAspectWestForgottenEducationalSensesContemporaryReasoningAestheticInwardAlienationTruestRestlessnessEducational SystemModern ManHis Loss
Author:Kallistos Ware
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“And when comfort is what we want, one of the most powerful tonics alternative medicine offers is the word 'natural.' This word implies a medicine untroubled by human limitations, contrived wholly by nature or God or perhaps intelligent design. What 'natural' has come to mean to us in the context of medicine is 'pure' and 'safe' and 'benign'. But the use of 'natural' as a synonym for 'good' is almost certainly a product of our profound alienation from the natural world.”

WorldWantHumansMeanUseNaturalPowerfulDesignProductsComfortOffersPureSafeIntelligentMedicineProfoundAlternativesLimitationMost PowerfulAlienationNatural WorldBenignIntelligent DesignSynonymAlternative Medicine
Author:Eula Biss
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