“In classical cultures, an ascended class had to justify itself before those now below in the social structure. But the culture revolution of our time has eliminated this need for class- as well as self-justification. Nevertheless, those below still seek to emulate the ascendant social class, without being convinced of its superiority.”

—  Philip Rieff

The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966)

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 "In classical cultures, an ascended class had to justify itself before those now below in the social structure. But the …" by Philip Rieff?
Philip Rieff photo
Philip Rieff16
American sociologist 1922–2006

Related quotes

“It is the historic glory of the intellectual class of the West in modern times that, of all the classes which could be called in any sense privileged, it has shown the largest and most consistent concern for the well-being of the classes which lie below it in the social scale.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1974), p. 29

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“When civilization comes to a certain point, the changes in the higher classes are little more than those of fancies and of fashions; but those operating on the classes below are changes of character.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

No.4. Guy Mannering — LUCY BERTRAM.
Literary Remains

John Holloway photo

“Class struggle does not take place within the constituted forms of capitalist social relations: rather the constitution of those forms is itself class struggle.”

John Holloway book Change the World Without Taking Power

Change the World Without Taking Power (2002)

“In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly motivated and endowed. The expectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be affected by their social class.”

John Rawls book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter II, Section 12, pg. 73

Bertrand Russell photo

“In the past, there was a small leisure class and a larger working class. The leisure class enjoyed advantages for which there was no basis in social justice; this necessarily made it oppressive, limited its sympathies, and caused it to invent theories by which to justify its privileges.”

Bertrand Russell book In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

Source: 1930s, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness, p. 13 https://books.google.com/books?id=CnlbMP_vBmgC&pg=PA13

Marilyn Ferguson photo

“The perturbation would come from the privileged classes, he said, because that is the way of revolutions. They are launched by those disenchanted with the culture's ultimate reward system.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Five, The American Matrix for Transformation

“A bohemian imitates the manners of the class below him.”

John Leonard (1939–2008) American critic, writer, and commentator

"Snapshots" (p. 135)
Private Lives in the Imperial City (1979)

Marilyn Ferguson photo

“If we consider that any child being abused is our child, the problem changes. When we see our culture, our social conditioning, or our class as an artifact rather than a universal yardstick, our kinship expands. We are no longer "ethnocentric," centered in our own culture.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Twelve, Human Connections: Relationships Changing, p. 402

Mao Zedong photo

“Revolutions and revolutionary wars are inevitable in class society, and without them it is impossible to accomplish any leap in social development and to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes and therefore impossible for the people to win political power.”

Mao Zedong book On Contradiction

On Contradiction (1937)

“Any scientific treatment of the history of art must encompass not only the concepts of ‘social class’ and ‘class struggle, but also all the terms which describe particular social groups such as social category, autonomous fraction of a class, fraction of a class, and social stratum.”

Nicos Hadjinicolaou (1938) Art historian of Marxist-methodology and historian of visual ideology; El Greco scholar and Professor, El Greco …

Art History And Class Struggle (1978)

Related topics