“We've long ago reached that level.”

— Noam Chomsky

letter to Alexander Cockburn (1 March 1990), later paraphrased in Deterring Democracy (1992) p. 345.
Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994
Context: The sign of a truly totalitarian culture is that important truths simply lack cognitive meaning and are interpretable only at the level of "Fuck You", so they can then elicit a perfectly predictable torrent of abuse in response. We've long ago reached that level.

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Noam Chomsky 334

american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

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“The sign of a truly totalitarian culture is that important truths simply lack cognitive meaning and are interpretable only at the level of "Fuck You", so they can then elicit a perfectly predictable torrent of abuse in response. We've long ago reached that level.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

letter to Alexander Cockburn (1 March 1990), later paraphrased in Deterring Democracy (1992) p. 345.
Quotes 1990s, 1990–1994

“Long ago, the people of the world cried out for help. In the reaches of heaven their cry was heard, and a Visitor came in answer to it.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Guardian Camwar, in Ch. 4 : the cooper 
The Visitor (2002)
Context: Long ago, the people of the world cried out for help. In the reaches of heaven their cry was heard, and a Visitor came in answer to it. The Visitor began helping immediately, but secretly. Now the visitor intends to be known to the people of the world and the people of the world must deal with that knowledge.

“The sun and the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago…had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.”

H. Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer

Source: The Dance of Life http://www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300671.txt (1923), Ch. 7

“Most of us have achieved levels of affluence and comfort unthought of two generations ago.
We've never had it so good, most of us.
Nor have we ever complained so bitterly about our problems.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Address at Iona College (1984)
Context: Most of us have achieved levels of affluence and comfort unthought of two generations ago.
We've never had it so good, most of us.
Nor have we ever complained so bitterly about our problems.
The closed circle of materialism is clear to us now — aspirations become wants, wants become needs, and self-gratification becomes a bottomless pit.
All around us we have seen success in the world's terms become ultimate and desperate failure. <!-- p. 934