Jeremy Seabrook famous quotes

To provide its happy people with perpetual fun is now the deepest purpose of Western civilization.
-- Jeremy Seabrook

#Fun #Civilization #People

The only chance of satisfaction we can imagine is getting more of what we have now. But what we have now makes everybody dissatisfied. So what will more of it do -- make us more satisfied, or more dissatisfied?
-- Jeremy Seabrook

#Satisfaction #Chance #Imagine

It is impossible to restore the sustainable societies of indigenous and aboriginal peoples. But the values they embodied - careful stewardship of the earth, modest use of its riches, safeguarding the future of the generations to come, restraint and as high a degree of self-provisioning as possible - can reanimate ancient and still unrealized dreams of a secure sustenence for all.
-- Jeremy Seabrook

#Dream #Self #Degrees

There is one rule for the G-7 (richest countries) and another for the South. The G-7 now preaches open economies and liberalization, as well as 'good governance' and 'transparency'. Yet none of these things was conspicuous when the West grew rich.
-- Jeremy Seabrook

#Country #West #Rich

Human rights are particularly cherished by the West, which has never acknowledged economic rights. Human rights mean freedom from politcal oppression, tyranny and abuse, while economic oppression, tyranny and abuse are built into the very structures of globalization.
-- Jeremy Seabrook

#Mean #Rights #Abuse

Since felons are subsequently disfranchised, the US now has 1.75 million people disqualified from voting because of their criminality- 1.4 million black men have forfeited their right to vote, almost 15 per cent of the black male population.
-- Jeremy Seabrook

#Men #People #Voting

A sense of self has to be sought in the parade of images and products; and this culture becomes the main determinant upon morality, beliefs, and purpose, usurping more and more territory that formerly belonged to parents, teachers, community, priests, and politics alike.
-- Jeremy Seabrook

#Teacher #Self #Community

The individual is denuded of everything but appetites, desires, and tastes, wrenched from any context of human obligation or commitment. It is a process of mutilation; and once this has been achieved, we are offered the consolation of reconstituting the abbreviated humanity out of the things and the goods around us, and the fantasies and vapors which they emit.
-- Jeremy Seabrook

#Commitment #Humanity #Desire

Remember that sports are meant to be fun. Don't let someone make the sport unfun for you.

Surprise keeps the reader awake. The only alternative is to continue saying what the reader is expecting. What fun is that?

Wouldn't you want to be indicted by the govenment for a high crime? It's a great thrill. It's an honor. It's a compliment. It's fun. I'm enjoying every minute of it!

Yet, history has shown that if material force can defeat some ideologies it can no longer obliterate a civilization without destabilizing the whole planet.

As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind. Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation.

English civilization rests largely upon tea and cricket, with mighty spurts of enjoyment on Derby Day, and at Newmarket.

Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible. It wears us out by multiplying distractions and beats us down by destroying our solitude, where otherwise we might drink and renew our strength before going out to face the world again.

CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally... Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past.

There's the South Pole, said Christopher Robin, and I expect there's an East Pole and a West Pole, though people don't like talking about them.

People seldom refuse help, if one offers it in the right way.