“History and geology show what an eyeblink it’s been since our current, comfortable culture came about. And yet that culture is using up absolutely everything at a ferocious rate.”
Afterword (p. 656)
Earth (1990)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
David Brin 123
novelist, short story writer 1950Related quotes

Quoted by Doug Rule in RuPaul: Ultimate Queen http://www.metroweekly.com/2016/04/ultimate-queen-rupaul/ (2016)
"Merchants of Fear" http://www.lneilsmith.org/merchant.html Presented to the Boulder County Libertarian Party, 20 February 1994.

“We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice.”
Great Jewish Short Stories, introduction to the Dell paperback edition (1963)
General sources
Context: We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make what we can of our condition with the means available. We must accept the mixture as we find it — the impurity of it, the tragedy of it, the hope of it.

As quoted in Myth and Religion in Mircea Eliade (2002) by Douglas Allen, p. 216.

On westernisation, as quoted in " Centre targets 'cultural pollution' http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150908/jsp/frontpage/story_41407.jsp" Calcutta Telegraph (7 September 2015)

Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, Quoted from Talreja, K. M. (2000). Holy Vedas and holy Bible: A comparative study. New Delhi: Rashtriya Chetana Sangathan.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Afterword (1984)
Context: Uncle Tom's Cabin was no literary masterpiece but it was a culture-bearing book. It came at a time when the entire culture was about to reject slavery. People seized upon it as a portrayal of their own new values and it became an overwhelming success.
The success of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance seems the result of this culture-bearing phenomenon. The involuntary shock treatment described here is against the law today. It is a violation of human liberty. The culture has changed.