Both individuals and societies tell themselves stories to simplify and make sense of the messy chaos of reality.
Adam CurtisRead
Ever since the economic crisis in 2008, millions of people have accepted cuts in all sorts of things - from real wages and living standards to benefits and hospital care - without any real opposition. The cuts may be right, or they may be stupid - but the astonishing thing is how no-one really challenges them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the lack of public resistance to austerity measures following the 2008 economic crisis.
Adam Curtis highlights a concerning trend where millions have accepted significant reductions in wages, living standards, and essential services without substantial pushback. This observation raises critical questions about societal complacency and the nature of public discourse, suggesting that whether these cuts are justified or not, their acceptance by the masses signals a troubling absence of challenge or debate in the face of adversity.
Themes
Economic Crisis AusterityPublic ComplacencyLiving StandardsOpposition
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about current economic policies during a community meeting.
More from Adam Curtis
All quotes →In our age of individualism, we see computers as ways through which we can express our individuality. But the truth is that the computers are really good at spotting the very opposite. The computers can see how similar we are, and they then have the ability to agglomerate us together into groups that have the same behaviours.
Adam CurtisRead
One of the guiding beliefs of our consuming age is that we are all free and independent individuals. That we can choose to do pretty much what we want, and if we can't, then it's bad. But at the same time, co-existing alongside this, there is a completely different, parallel universe where we all seem meekly to do what those in power tell us to do.
Adam CurtisRead
So much of the language that surrounds us - from things like economics, management theory, and the algorithms built into computer systems - appears to be objective and neutral. But in fact, it is loaded with powerful, and very debatable, political assumptions about how society should work and what human beings are really like.
Adam CurtisRead
Throughout the western world, new systems have risen up whose job is to constantly record and monitor the present - and then compare that to the recorded past. The aim is to discover patterns, coincidences and correlations, and from that, find ways of stopping change. Keeping things the same.
Adam CurtisRead
Similar quotes
I believe every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. Violence should not be answered just by greater violence but by real understanding. We must ask: 'Where is the violence coming from? What is its meaning?
Jean VanierRead
The American people need no course in philosophy or political science of church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman.
Mario CuomoRead
One can no more have a private religion than one can have a private sun or a private moon.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
God is the original, master forgiver. Each time we grope our reluctant way through the minor miracle of forgiving, we are imitating his style. I am not at all sure that any of us would have had imagination enough to see the possibilities in this way to heal the wrongs of this life had he not done it first.
Lewis B. SmedesRead
Sometimes with the most intense pain a paralysis of sensibility occurs. The soul disintegrates--hence the deadly frost--the free power of the mind--the shattering, ceaseless wit of this kind of despair. There is no inclination for anything any more--the person is alone, like a baleful power--as he has no connection with the rest of the world he consumes himself gradually--and in accordance with his own principle he is--misanthropic and misotheos.
NovalisRead
While in a vintage restaurant..."the past isn't quaint while you're in it. Only at a safe distance, later, when you see it as decor, not as the shape your life's been squeezed into.
Margaret AtwoodRead