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Standardization Quotes

Browse 42 quotes about Standardization.

Standardization Quotes

“In our own day, there has been too much of a tendency towards authority, and too little care for the preservation of initiative. Men in control of vast organisations have tended to be too abstract in their outlook, to forget what actual human beings are like, and to try to fit men to systems rather than systems to men.”

EducationAuthorityInnovationIndividualityStatus QuoAutonomySystemAcademiaNonconformityStandardization
Book:Authority and the Individual
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“Every standardized institution, by definition and design, is focused on efficiency above all else, and generic motives and universal motives are efficient ways of moving the needle—on average, at least. But they’re horrible for your own fulfillment. Not only do standardized views of motivation ignore everything that is important about who you are, but by incessantly focusing all of our attention on a small set of institutionally ordained motives, the Standardization Covenant constrains our thinking about what a personal motive can even be. Fortunately, dark horses reveal the hidden truth about motivation. ... The lives of dark horses demonstrate the remarkable specificity of micro-motives.”

SuccessEducationIndividualityEfficiencyStatus QuoDifferenceDivergentOriginalStandardization
Book:Dark Horse: Achieving Success Through the Pursuit of Fulfillment
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“While the assembly line created some meaningful advances in society, it widened the gap between the haves and the have- nots by solidifying a tremendous barrier to entry for manufacturing businesses. Factories and assembly lines cost millions and millions of dollars to build, and those resources were only available to large organizations and wealthy industrialists. That made it nearly impossible to disrupt or innovate without being associated with one of these entities. The assembly line also marked a tipping point for standardization and globalization. Prior to its arrival there was a strong emotional connection between the artisan and the product. The maker was close to the consumer, and that meant something to both of them. Standardized production over the twentieth century eroded that connection by separating the producer from the product. Producers no longer had to be skilled—they now only had to handle a piece of the process. That, with very few exceptions, systematically eliminated specialized artisan work. And the more efficient production became, the more financially beneficial it was to consolidate on the retail side as well, which led to what most call globalization, but I call global monotony. We entered the “Boring Age,” one in which different cities and countries all featured the same stores and products.”

InnovationEntrepreneurMarketingBrandAge Of IdeasStandardizationFordAssembley Line
Book:The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential
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“My evanescent anarchistic tendencies are purely classical. I use the word anarchist in the sense in which it was understood by the ancient Greeks. They, of course, accepted the anarchist as a fairly respectable--if somewhat vehement--opponent of government encroachment on the individual's rights to think and act freely. It is in this sense that I glimpse myself as an anarchist--regretting the growth of government and the ever-increasing trend toward regulation and, worst of all, standardization of human activity.”

IndividualFreedomLibertyAnarchismAnarchistGovernment RegulationStandardization
Book:How to Be Rich
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“Most of us are still in some small way victims of the Industrial Revolution. Whether through our grandparents, our parents, or our own experience, we were raised to believe that our place in life required compliance and conformity rather than creativity and uniqueness. We have been raised in a world where information is deemed far more important than imagination. Adults replaced dreams with discipline when they were finally ready to grow up and be responsible for their lives. Whether this contrast was reinforced on an assembly line, in a cubicle, or in a classroom, the surest path to acceptance in society is accepting standardization. And we more than willingly, relinquish our uniqueness.”

CreativityIndustrial RevolutionStandardization
Book:The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art
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“As the Washington Post reported in March of 2016, US elections ranked dead last among Western democracies. And, this is not because of Russia or Vladimir Putin. Rather, as the piece explained, it is because of the faulty, non-standardized election processes across the country...”

DemocracyVotingRepresentationTransparencyStandardizationElectoral ProcessEquitabilityVote Counting
Book:The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Russia
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“We had learned how to invent things, and the question of why we invent things receded in importance. The idea that if something could be done it should be done was born in the nineteenth century. And along with it, there developed a profound belief in all the principles through which invention succeeds: objectivity, efficiency, expertise, standardization, measurement, and progress. It also came to be believed that the engine of technological progress worked most efficiently when people are conceived of not as children of God or even as citizens but as consumers-that is to say, as markets.”

PeopleIfsShouldChildrenIdeasDoneBeliefBornPrinciplesProgressCenturyCitizensSucceedImportanceProfoundInventionConsumersEnginesEfficiencyConsumerismTechnologicalExpertiseMeasurementObjectivityNineteenth CenturyChild Of GodOverconsumptionTechnological ProgressStandardization
Book:Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
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“The development of European integration can be divided into two phases. The first era ended with the Maastricht Treaty. It was a liberalization phase, with the main goal of European integration at the time being the removal of various barriers and borders in Europe. The second phase is a homogenization or standardization phase, one that involves regulation from the top and growing control over our lives. This no longer has anything to do with freedom and democracy.”

FirstsTwoGoalDemocracyOur LivesGrowingDevelopmentEuropeVariousErasBordersBarriersDividedRegulationPhasesIntegrationTreatiesRemovalStandardizationEuropean Integration
Author:Vaclav Klaus
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“This is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America - this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.”

WayLittlesArtAmericaDesireRaceMountainStandingIndividualityUrgesMoldWhitenessStandardization
Book:The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Essays on art, race, politics, and world affairs
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“Cultural institutions by and large share one primary objective: herd control. Even when ostensibly benign, their propensity for manipulation, compartmentalization, standardization and suppression of potentially disruptive behavior or ideas, has served to freeze the evolution of consciousness practically in its tracks.”

IdeasConsciousnessShareEvolutionBehaviorInstitutionsTrackObjectivesPrimariesManipulationHerdsFreezeSuppressionBenignPropensityDisruptiveStandardization
Author:Tom Robbins
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“Latin, as we all know, ultimately broke down into Spanish, Italian, French, and so on. One wonders whether there will be an imperial parallel with English breaking down into, shall we say, North American, European, Australian, and so on. On the other hand, there is this immense, inward-driving influence of radio and television that is bringing us all back together. One could say it's a fight between the two: a fight between regionalism and the standardization through communication.”

KnowsTwoHandsTogetherFightingWonderInfluenceTelevisionCommunicationRadioDrivingBrokeLatinItalianImmenseInwardBreaking DownParallelsAustralianBack TogetherStandardizationRegionalism
Author:William Golding
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“America's Facebook generation shows a submission to standardization that I haven't seen before. The American adventure has always been about people forgetting their former selves - Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac went on the road. If they had a Facebook page, they wouldn't have been able to forget their former selves.”

PeopleIfsHas BeensSelfShowsAbleAmericaForgetGenerationsHavensAdventurePagesMarkFormerSubmissionStandardizationFacebook Page
Author:Jaron Lanier
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“The enemy of the black is not the white. The enemy of capitalist is not communist, the enemy of homosexual is not heterosexual, the enemy of Jew is not Arab, the enemy of youth is not the old, the enemy of hip is not redneck, the enemy of Chicano is not gringo and the enemy of women is not men. We all have the same enemy. The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind. The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, the enemy is every proponent of standardization and the enemy is every victim who is so dull and lazy and weak as to allow himself to be manipulated and standardized.”

MenMindBlackWhiteEnemyPracticeYouthWeakVictimJewTyrannyHipsExpertsDullLazyManipulationCommunistCapitalistHomosexualRedneckStandardizationDull Minds
Author:Tom Robbins
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“There are forces working in the world as never before in the history of mankind for standardization, for the regimentation of us all, or what I like to call making muffins of us, muffins all like every other muffin in the muffin tin. This is the limited universe, the drying dissipating universe that we can help our children to avoid by providing them with ‘explosive material capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly'.”

WorldChildrenHelpingUniverseForceMankindMaterialsCapableOur ChildrenProvidingStirringExplosivesTinMuffinsStandardizationRegimentation
Book:A Wrinkle in Time: 50th Anniversary Commemorative Edition
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“So far, we do not seem appalled at the prospect of exactly the same kind of education being applied to all the school children from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but there is an uneasiness in the air, a realization that the individual is growing less easy to find; an idea, perhaps, of what standardization might become when the units are not machines, but human beings.”

HumansKindChildrenIdeasSeemsMightSchoolIndividualEasyJusticeHuman BeingsGrowingAirMachinesSocial JusticeRealizationUnitsPacificUneasinessStandardization
Book:The Ever-Present Past
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“The Second Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment, and weapons of mass destruction. You combine those things with standardization, centralization, concentration, and synchronization, and you wind up with a style of organization we call bureaucracy.”

MediaStyleWindWeaponsMassDestructionOrganizationWaveProductionsEntertainmentConcentrationConsumptionBureaucracyDistributionWeapons Of Mass DestructionMass DestructionRecreationMass MediaCentralizationMass ProductionStandardizationMass Consumption
Author:Alvin Toffler
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