“Men become utilitarian out of fear of the alternative—the chaos of tangled or tepid desires, of rootlessness and boredom.”
Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 148
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John Carroll58
Australian professor and author 1944Related quotes
Merold Westphal (1940)
but without personal involvement, for mass society is a spectator society
p. 50
Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason and Society (1992)
“Morality, like politics, is the alternative to chaos and war.”
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Other
Alberto Moravia book L'Ennui
In principio, dunque, era la noia, volgarmente chiamata caos. Iddio, annoiandosi della noia, creò la terra, il cielo, l'acqua, gli animali, le piante, Adamo ed Èva; i quali ultimi, annoiandosi a loro volta in paradiso, mangiarono il frutto proibito. Iddio si annoiò di loro e li cacciò dall'Eden.
La noia (Milano: Bompiani, 1960) pp. 10-11; Angus Davidson (trans.) Boredom (New York: New York Review of Books, 1999) p. 8.
“Boredom is fear's patience. Fear doesn't want to exaggerate.”
Herta Müller book The Hunger Angel
Source: The Hunger Angel (2012), p. 198
“Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.”
Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet
"A Community of the Spirit" in Ch. 1 : The Tavern, p. 2
The Essential Rumi (1995)
Context: Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence. Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
Merold Westphal (1940)
Source: Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason and Society (1992), p. 50
“There comes a time when a men desires to rise above fear.”
Edmund Cooper (1926–1982) British writer
The cloud walker (1973)