cultural persistence Quotes

Often the less there is to justify a traditional custom the harder it is to get rid it.

When I die, they'll bury the blues with me. But the blues will never die.

Long as the Earth is here, hip-hop'll be here.

The laws of Solon, of Numa of Lycurgus are dead while the even older laws of Moses still live. Athens, Sparta, Rome have perished and have left no children on earth. Zion, while destroyed did not lose its children;;; They no longer have leaders and yet they are a people, they no longer have a country and yet they are citizens.

If only one country, for whatever reason, tolerates a Jewish family in it, that family will become the germ center for fresh sedition. If one little Jewish boy survives without any Jewish education, with no synagogue and no Hebrew school, it [Judaism] is in his soul. Even if there had never been a synagogue or a Jewish school or an Old Testament, the Jewish spirit would still exist and exert its influence. It has been there from the beginning and there is no Jew, not a single one, who does not personify it.

This, it may be said, is no more than a hypothesis, but it satisfies the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis, by postulating the operation of no unknown or uncertain cause, but only of that force of precedent which in all times has been so strong to keep alive religious forms of which the original meaning is lost.

The Anglo-Saxon has established himself in climates totally diverse - Canada, South Africa, and India - and, through several generations, has preserved his essential race characteristics. He is not, of course, superior to climatic influences; but even in warm climates, he is likely to retain his aggressive vigor long enough to supplant races already enfeebled.

Despite history, despite English, despite the noteworthies, and a little bit also despite ourselves, alas!, the Quebecois people have stayed French. I had violently returned. This people had no need of directives to affirm its French pride in the face of the whole world

China is a country with a record of continuous self-government going back 4,000 years, the only society that has achieved this. One must start with the assumption that they must have learnt something about the requirements for survival, and it is not always to be assumed that we know it better than they do.

Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social and demographic conditions that spawned them have vanished, and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them.

Art, if it is art, will develop in whatever circumstances it is placed.

A classic is a work which persists as a background noise even when a present that is totally incompatible with it holds sway.

This, it may be said, is no more than a hypothesis... only of that force of precedent which in all times has been so strong to keep alive religious forms of which the original meaning is lost.

Jewishness cropped up and has never successfully been put down since.

They'll always be an England, even if it's in Hollywood.

No culture in history has ever embraced moral relativism and survived. Our own culture, therefore, will either (1) be the first, and disprove history's clearest lesson, or (2) persist in its relativism and die, or (3) repent of its relativism and live. There is no other option.

Cultures, for better or worse, are very stable.

I think people are always saying things are 'over.' Fiction has been regularly 'over' since the 19th century.

Tribalism is a social form which can exist at any level of technology. It's a complete illusion to associate it with low levels of technology. It is probably, in fact, a form of social organization second only to the family in its ability to endure.

That rock ‘n’roll, eh? That rock’n’roll, it just won’t go away. It might hibernate from time to time, sink back into the swamp. I think the cyclical nature of the universe in which it exists demands that acquiesce to some of its rules. But it’s always waiting there, just around the corner,” he added. “Ready to make its way back through the sludge and smash through the glass ceiling, looking better than ever. Yeah, that rock’n’roll, it seems like it’s faded away sometimes, but it will never die. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

The culture will not be able to persist in light of the rigid systems of its own innocence.

What I do know is rock and roll and metal never goes away, ever. It took the back seat in America in the '90s. In Japan and South America, it was still really big. I never followed trends, so I don't know the exact function of them.

Actually, it's as if [Superman is] more real than we are. We writers come and go, generations of artists leave their interpretations, and yet something persists, something that is always Superman.

Celtic music will always be around, even if with the mainstream crowds it dies out.

Every one of the constituent elements of a social group, in a modern city as in a savage tribe, is born immature, helpless, without language, beliefs, ideas, or social standards. Each individual, each unit who is the carrier of the life-experience of his group, in time passes away. Yet the life of the group goes on.