Cultural Meaning Quotes

One way to think about what psychedelics are is as catalysts for language development. They literally force the evolution of language. You cannot evolve faster than your language because the language defines the culture of meaning. So if there's a way to accelerate the evolution of language then this is real consciousness expansion and it's a permanent thing. The great legacies of the 60's are in attitudes and language. It boils down to doing your own thing, feeling the vibe, ego-trip, blowing your mind.

My books are not about how it feels to be a black man. My books are about how it feels to be a human being, and part of what I'm trying to sort out is what we mean - what I mean, what you mean, what everybody in the culture means - when they say 'black man,' or they say 'white person.'

I like to look at everything and appreciate seeing the different things that have meaning to people.

Often I am struck in amazement about a word: I suddenly realize that the complete arbitrariness of our language is but a part of the arbitrariness of our own world in general.

A symbol always transcends the one who makes use of it and makes him say in reality more than he is aware of expressing.

The placebo effect is one of the most fascinating things in the whole of medicine. It's not just about taking a pill, and your performance and your pain getting better. It's about our beliefs and expectations. It's about the cultural meaning of a treatment.

Children cannot be fooled by empty praise and condescending encouragement. They may have to accept artificial bolstering of their self-esteem in lieu of something better, but what I call their accruing ego identity gains real strength only from wholehearted and consistent recognition of real accomplishment, that is, achievement that has meaning in their culture.

Ask yourself why a red carpet is red. It could be any colour.

For any culture which is primarily concerned with meaning, the study of death - the only certainty that life holds for us - must be central, for an understanding of death is the key to liberation in life.

The way we make sense of a realistic text is through the same broad ideological frame as the way we make sense of our social experience or rather, the way we are made sense of by the discourses of our culture.

It is through symbols that man consciously or unconsciously lives, works and has his being.

It's the old case against symbols: if you get them, they seem obvious and artificial, and if you don't, you miss the whole point.

To me, what I'm interested in, in the end, is the meaning of food in our lives.

My parents gave me a Mexican name. In our culture, we are named after the events of the day.