“True civilization consists precisely of conventions, rituals, and modes of oblique communication whereby the chaos within and the void without may be expressed and contained within the harmonious consensus of shared social objectivity, thus maintaining our bubble of crafted reality, the necessary illusion.”

— Norman Spinrad, book The Void Captain's Tale

Source: The Void Captain's Tale (1983), Chapter 9 (p. 107)

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Norman Spinrad19

American science fiction writer and critic 1940

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“Social morality requires a shared matrix of communal reality to which to relate thought and deed, and the illusion of an objective ethical esthetic requires at the very least the conviction that objective reality is more than a contradiction in terms.”

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“Before the soul can see, the Harmony within must be attained, and fleshly eyes be rendered blind to all illusion.”

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“A continually reaffirmed thesis of communism is that its objectives cannot be realized without ruthless violence nor within the framework of a constitutional order.”

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Peter L. Berger book The Social Construction of Reality

Source: The Social Construction of Reality, 1966, p. 25

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Norman Spinrad19

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