Letter to Harold Adam Innis (14 March 1951), published in Essential McLuhan (1995), edited by Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone, p. 73
1950s
“The ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness represent attempts to interpret the process of development as a group of tendencies permanently directed towards certain permanent and universal ends. But human behaviour is not directed towards unchanging ends, not even towards those temporary ideals which each community sets up for itself. The formative tendency is displayed, not in any steady process of definite orientation, but in a rhythmic sequence of transformation which cannot be represented as tending towards any particular final condition.”
Source: The Next Development in Man (1948), p. 261-262
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Lancelot Law Whyte 62
Scottish industrial engineer 1896–1972Related quotes
Cited as being from Catch-22 but really from the discussion, for Chapter 26, in CliffsNotes on Heller’s Catch-22 https://www.amazon.com/CliffsNotes-Hellers-Catch-22-Cliffsnotes-Literature-ebook/dp/B00BOE144M.
Disputed
Source: The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 1 : Ideology As Material Power, Section 1 : The Divergence Of Ideology And Economic Situation
Context: Revolutionary practice in any field of human existence develops by itself if one comprehends the contradictions in every new process; it consists in siding with those forces which act in the direction of progressive development. To be radical, according to Marx, means "going to the root of things." If one goes to the root of things, if one understands their contradictory character, the means of mastering the reaction become plain.
Source: 1840s, The Mathematical Analysis of Logic, 1847, p. 5
Leon Festinger and John Thibaut. "Interpersonal communication in small groups." The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 46.1 (1951): 92.
Leon Festinger and John Thibaut. "Interpersonal communication in small groups." The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 46.1 (1951): 92.
Source: Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, 1981, p. 223 as cited in: Gillian Ragsdell, Daune West, Jennifer Wilby (2002) Systems Theory and Practice in the Knowledge Age. p. 82. In the original quote Checkland summarised his earlier work with Smyth published in 1976.
Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Art-Principle as Represented in Poetry, p.183-4
1940s, Why Socialism? (1949)