Education, the great mumbo jumbo and fraud of the age purports to equip us to live and is prescribed as a universal remedy for everything from juvenile delinquency to premature senility.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
What is called Western Civilization is in an advanced state of decomposition, and another Dark Ages will soon be upon us, if, indeed, it has not already begun. With the Media, especially television, governing all our lives, as they indubitably do, it is easily imaginable that this might happen without our noticing...by accustoming us to the gradual deterioration of our values.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote warns about the decline of Western civilization due to media influence on values.
Malcolm Muggeridge expresses a concern that Western civilization is in decay, akin to a new Dark Ages, as the pervasive influence of media, particularly television, shapes our lives and gradually erodes our values. He suggests that this deterioration may occur so subtly that we might not even notice its onset. The underlying message emphasizes the dangers of allowing media to influence our perceptions and values without critical engagement.
Themes
CivilizationMediaValuesDecayDark Ages
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the impact of media on society, this quote could be used to highlight the potential dangers of uncritical media consumption.
More from Malcolm Muggeridge
All quotes βThis life in us; however low it flickers or fiercely burns, is still a divine flame which no man dare presume to put out, be his motives never so humane and enlightened; To suppose otherwise is to countenance a death-wish; Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
I never met a rich man who was happy, but I have only very occasionally met a poor man who did not want to become a rich man.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
It was a somber place, haunted by old jokes and lost laughter. Life, as I discovered, holds no more wretched occupation than trying to make the English laugh.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
Bad humor is an evasion of reality; good humor is an acceptance of it.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
The only ultimate disaster that can befall us is to feel ourselves at home on this earth.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
Similar quotes
Those instrumental goods which should serve to maintain the life and health of all human beings should be produced by the least possible labour of all.
Albert EinsteinRead
When I go to hell, I mean to carry a bribe: for look you, good gifts evermore make way for the worst persons.
John WebsterRead
Being, belief and reason are pure relations, which cannot be dealt with absolutely, and are not things but pure scholastic concepts, signs for understanding, not for worshipping, aids to awaken our attention, not to fetter it.
Johann Georg HamannRead
Had not almost every man suffered by the Press, or were not the tyranny thereof become universal, I had not wanted reason for complaint.
Thomas BrowneRead
Why should some people have such a hard time during their few years on this earth?
Anne FrankRead
I have never known what is Arabic or English, or which one was really mine beyond any doubt. What I do know, however, is that the two have always been together in my life, one resonating in the other, sometimes ironically, sometimes nostalgically, most often each correcting, and commenting on, the other. Each can seem like my absolutely first language, but neither is.
Edward SaidRead