“Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.”

—  Bertolt Brecht , A Short Organum for the Theatre

¶ 55
A Short Organum for the Theatre (1949)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions." by Bertolt Brecht?
Bertolt Brecht photo
Bertolt Brecht 102
German poet, playwright, theatre director 1898–1956

Related quotes

“The overall system of a sizeable community struggling to survive in a crowded world may be either socialism or privatism. Either system may work, more or less. But, except in non-critical areas of distribution, commonism cannot possibly work for very long.”

Garrett Hardin (1915–2003) American ecologist

Filters Against Folly (1985)

K. R. Narayanan photo

“Communal mobilisation in the long run will not succeed in India because Indian society cannot be mobilized communally. Even the last elections have shown that communities, religious communities, castes did not vote solidly for one party.”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

Shri K. R. Narayanan President of India in Conversation with N. Ram on Doordarshan and All India Radio

Gianni Vattimo photo

“Soviet communism and Western capitalism share the same crazy ideology: forced industrialization of society.”

Gianni Vattimo (1936–2023) Italian philosopher, politician

"Only Weak Communism Can Save Us" (2013)

Liu Yandong photo

“China and Africa have always been a community of shared destiny. We are closely linked by our common historical experience, common development tasks and common strategic interests.”

Liu Yandong (1945) Chinese politician

Source: "刘延东：中南人民守望相助　友谊历久弥坚" https://www.mfa.gov.cn/ce/cezanew//chn/zngxss/jyjl/t1457724.htm (27 April 2017)

Joe Biden photo

“For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community. For too long as a nation, we have been lulled by the anthem of self-interest. For a decade, led by Ronald Reagan, self-aggrandizement has been the full-throated cry of this society: 'I've got mine, so why don't you get yours' and 'What's in it for me?”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Speech http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/10/us/biden-joins-campaign-for-the-presidency.html announcing entry into 1988 presidential race, Wilmington, Delaware (June 10, 1987)
1980s

“The one kind of society that the Church cannot adjust to is no society at all, i. e., a setup where community has become so fragmented that a communal religion is a fiction, sustained only by talk and make-news items in the press and television.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

"Church," p. 120
Essays in Disguise (1990)

“Faction is the greatest evil and the most common danger. "Faction" is the conventional English translation of the Greek stasis, one of the most remarkable words to be found in any language.”

Moses I. Finley (1912–1986) American historian

Source: Democracy Ancient And Modern (Second Edition) (1985), Chapter 2, Athenian Demagogues, p. 44

Jonah Goldberg photo

“As America’s Founders well understood, a society enjoying a multiplicity of institutions, interests, and intact communities (i. e., factions) is much more difficult to subjugate by a single central power, be it a king, a dictator, or a bureaucracy.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, Socialism is So Hot Right Now (2018)

James Madison photo

“By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Federalist No. 10 (22 November 1787) Full text from Wikisource http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist/10
1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

Patrick Henry photo

“United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.”

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States

Last public speech before his death (4 March 1799); as quoted in Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondences and Speeches (1891) by William Wirt Henry, Vol. 2, p. 609-610 http://www.archive.org/stream/pathenrylife02henrrich#page/608/mode/2up
1790s, Speech (1799)
Context: Let us trust God and our better judgment to set us right hereafter. United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs. Let us preserve our strength for the French, the English, the Germans, or whoever else shall dare invade our territory, and not exhaust it in civil commotions and intestine wars.

Related topics