“The point is that racism is the product of tribalism and ignorance and both are falling victim to communications and world-around literacy.”

—  Buckminster Fuller

As quoted in "The View from the Year 2000" http://books.google.com/books?id=kVMEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22Pollution+is+nothing+but+resources+we're+not+harvesting+We+allow+them+to+disperse+because+we've+been+ignorant+of+their+value%22&pg=PA52#v=onepage by Barry Farrell in LIFE magazine (26 February 1971)
Statement made in 1974, quoted in People magazine. In Thomas T. K. Zung, "Buckminster Fuller: Anthology for the New Millenium" (2002), 174.
1970s
Context: Pollution is nothing but resources we're not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value. But if we got onto a planning planning basis, the government could trap pollutants in the stacks and spillages and get back more money than this would cost out of the stockpiled chemistries they'd be collecting.
Margaret Mead gets cross with me when I talk like this because she says people are doing some very important things because they're worried and excited and I'm going to make them relax and stop doing those things. But we're dealing with something much bigger than we're accustomed to understanding, we're on a very large course indeed. You speak of racism, for example, and I tell you that there's no such thing as race. The point is that racism is the product of tribalism and ignorance and both are falling victim to communications and world-around literacy.

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 "The point is that racism is the product of tribalism and ignorance and both are falling victim to communications and wo…" by Buckminster Fuller?
Buckminster Fuller photo
Buckminster Fuller 171
American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inv… 1895–1983

Related quotes

Marshall McLuhan photo

“Literacy, in translating man out of the closed world of tribal depth and resonance, gave man an eye for an ear and ushered him into a visual open world of specialized and divided consciousness.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)

“Both individuals and communities must be able to possess the skills and knowledge required to function productively in the changing world.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

Education helps reduce social problems and improves quality of life

Christopher Hitchens photo

“Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Edward O. Wilson photo

“Nationalism and racism, to take two examples, are the culturally nurtured outgrowths of simple tribalism.”

Edward O. Wilson book On Human Nature

On Human Nature (1978), Ch.4 Emergence

Marshall McLuhan photo

“We are no more prepared to encounter radio and TV in our literate milieu than the native of Ghana is able to cope with the literacy that takes him out of his collective tribal world and beaches him in individual isolation.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

xx
1960s, Understanding Media (1964)

“Some people have said Brother Khalid was a villain, but we know he was a victim in a world that is evil. Racism and injustice are the real villains here.”

Khalid Abdul Muhammad (1948–2001) American activist

Charles Curtis, pastor of the Mount Olivet Baptist Church, at Khalid's funeral service (24 February 2001), quoted in New York Daily News (25 February 2001) "Khalid Buried Near Malcolm X" http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/khalid-buried-malcolm-x-article-1.910498
About Khalid

Huey P. Newton photo

“I have no doubt that the revolution will triumph. The people of the world will prevail, seize power, seize the means of production, wipe out racism, capitalism.”

Huey P. Newton book Revolutionary Suicide

Source: Revolutionary Suicide (1973), p. 4

Karen Armstrong photo

“Monotheism is essentially inimical to tribalism: it demands that a people unite in a single community.”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Source: Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001), Chapter 6, The Satanic Verses

Albert Memmi photo

“Racism rests upon and functions as a kind of seesaw: the persecutor rises by debasing and inferiorizing his victim.”

Albert Memmi (1920) French writer

Racism (1982)

Roger Ebert photo

“All we can learn from a film like this is that millions of people can be led, and millions more killed, by madness leashed to racism and the barbaric instincts of tribalism.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/downfall-2005 of Downfall (11 March 2005)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: Admiration I did not feel. Sympathy I felt in the sense that I would feel it for a rabid dog, while accepting that it must be destroyed. I do not feel the film provides "a sufficient response to what Hitler actually did," because I feel no film can, and no response would be sufficient. All we can learn from a film like this is that millions of people can be led, and millions more killed, by madness leashed to racism and the barbaric instincts of tribalism.

Related topics