Societal Collapse/theories/toynbee%E2%80%99s Theory of Decay

Famous quotes containing the words societal, collapse, theories, theory and/or decay:

    [Film noir] experiences periodic rebirth and rediscovery. Whenever we have any moment of deep societal rift or disruption in America, one of the ways we can express it is through the ideas and behavior in film noir.
    John Briley (b. 1925)

    Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.
    George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

    The theories and speculations of men concern us more than their puny accomplishment. It is with a certain coldness and languor that we loiter about the actual and so-called practical.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    ... the first reason for psychology’s failure to understand what people are and how they act, is that clinicians and psychiatrists, who are generally the theoreticians on these matters, have essentially made up myths without any evidence to support them; the second reason for psychology’s failure is that personality theory has looked for inner traits when it should have been looking for social context.
    Naomi Weisstein (b. 1939)

    Now, a corpse, poor thing, is an untouchable and the process of decay is, of all pieces of bad manners, the vulgarest imaginable. For a corpse is, by definition, a person absolutely devoid of savoir vivre.
    Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)