Quotes from book
The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism


Daniel Bell photo

“When a person is confirmed by others, there has to be some sign of recognition.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 2, The Disjunction of Cultural Discourse, p. 90

Daniel Bell photo

“Once a faith is shattered, it takes a long time to grow again - for its soil is experience - and to become effective again.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 6, The Public Household, p. 244
Context: Gadgets can be engineered, programs can be designed, institutions can be built, but belief has an organic quality, and it cannot be called into being by fiat. Once a faith is shattered, it takes a long time to grow again - for its soil is experience - and to become effective again.

Daniel Bell photo

“Every society seeks to establish a set of meanings through which people can relate themselves to the world.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 4, Toward the Great Instauration, p. 146

Daniel Bell photo

“No one can buy his share of "clean air" in the market; one has to use communal mechanisms in order to deal with pollution.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 5, Unstable America, p. 196

Daniel Bell photo

“If the language of art is not accessible to ordinary language and ordinary experience, how can it be accessible to ordinary people?”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 3, The Sensibility of the Sixties, p. 131

Daniel Bell photo
Daniel Bell photo

“Today, the culture can hardly, if at all, reflect the society in which people live.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 2, The Disjunction of Cultural Discourse, p. 95

Daniel Bell photo

“The relationship between a civilization's socio-economic structure and its culture is perhaps the most complicated of all problems for the sociologist.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 1, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, p. 33

Daniel Bell photo

“Modern culture is defined by this extraordinary freedom to ransack the world storehouse and to engorge any and every style it comes upon.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Introduction, The Disjunction of Realms, p. 13
The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976)

Daniel Bell photo
Daniel Bell photo

“The democratization of genius is made possible by the fact while one can quarrel with judgments, one cannot quarrel with feelings.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 3, The Sensibility of the Sixties, p. 134

Daniel Bell photo
Daniel Bell photo

“It is equally clear that what an individual often wants for himself (such as an open highway) in the aggregate becomes a nightmare.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Introduction, The Disjunction of Realms, p. 21
The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976)

Daniel Bell photo
Daniel Bell photo

“The discussion of any society risks seduction by what is transient and tumultuous.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 5, Unstable America, p. 191

Daniel Bell photo

“The virtue of the market is that it disperses responsibility.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 5, Unstable America, p. 197

Daniel Bell photo

“Where religions fail, cults appear.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 4, Toward the Great Instauration, p. 168

Daniel Bell photo
Daniel Bell photo

“Art is not life, but in a sense something contrary to life, since life is transient and changing, while art is permanent.”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 3, The Sensibility of the Sixties, p. 124

Daniel Bell photo

Similar authors

Daniel Bell photo
Daniel Bell24
American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor emeritu… 1919–2011
Herbert A. Simon photo
Herbert A. Simon58
American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and p… None
Wole Soyinka photo
Wole Soyinka11
Nigerian writer None
Stan Lee photo
Stan Lee21
American comic book writer None
Murray Gell-Mann photo
Murray Gell-Mann10
American physicist None
Isaac Asimov photo
Isaac Asimov303
American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston Uni… None
Toni Morrison photo
Toni Morrison184
American writer None
Paul Krugman photo
Paul Krugman106
American economist None
Jerome Isaac Friedman photo
Jerome Isaac Friedman6
American physicist None
Joseph E. Stiglitz photo
Joseph E. Stiglitz39
American economist and professor, born 1943. None