Social Attitudes Quotes

Intellectually the French are wonderfully open, in a way the British just don't begin to be. You can question ideas in France, endlessly. In Britain, two things happen when you do that. Either you're branded an intellectual, which is fundamentally mistrusted, or you're branded a phony and pretentious, which people despise.

Other people teach us who we are. Their attitudes to us are the mirror in which we learn to see ourselves, but the mirror is distorted. We are, perhaps, rather dimly aware of the immense power of our social enviornment.

The current dominant opinion supporting the war on drugs in general, and our anti-marijuana laws in particular, is reminiscent of the opinion that supported the nationwide ban on alcohol consumption when I was a student. While alcoholic beverages are now regarded as ordinary articles of commerce, their use was then condemned with the same moral fervor that now supports the war on drugs.

When I look at public opinion, I'm not far out of the mainstream. I'm in it, in many respects. In some respects, public opinion goes beyond anything I've ever said.

Again and again, people get more conservative as they get older.

Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing

Public-opinion polls show that Americans split about evenly on civil unions. But when the words 'gay marriage' are presented, they break 3-to-1 against it.

The way that one feels about the story line of 'Deterrence' can tell us, I believe, about each person's conservatism or liberalism and precisely how tolerant he or she is of racism.

If I think about most of America, and maybe I'm terribly wrong...but I think most of America would say that they're not in favor of gay marriage. But there is certainly a large cohort, not a majority but a large number of people, who are articulate and vocal and they'd rally behind this. They're making their opinion known.

Tradition sometimes excludes the girl child from inheriting; or single women may not want to be perceived as pursuing too much property. The law has come a long way in favor of the woman, but it is the tradition, the attitudes, that we often have to fight.

Do I believe it's possible that some young person, young voting actor, or even older voting member for the Emmys, would sit there and go, 'Yeah, that's a great performance, but oooooh, I just hate everything he stands for?' I don't believe that's possible.

Most Americans don't care about gay marriage.

Racism been over. It's the old people that keep on holding on to it.

We didn't used to be so precious about women in comedy back in the old days.

When my parents were divorced in the late '70s, early '80s, the climate was that you should screw over your ex as much as possible - get the worst lawyer in the world, all that. That's not what people are out to do anymore. It feels cruddy to try and destroy each other just because you're breaking up.

In Britain, any degree of success is met with envy and resentment.

People always think that history proceeds in a straight line. It doesn't. Social attitudes don't change in a straight line. There's always a backlash against progressive ideas.

Being in the nude isn't a disgrace unless you're being promiscuous about it. After all, when God created Adam and Eve, they were stark naked. And in the Garden of Eden, God was probably naked as a jaybird too!

Sexuality is a topic that has huge shifts in -society. Attitudes toward different sexualities change, but the actual sexuality of a human being is something that's consistent, and it's consistently interesting, and so people write about it.

In India, I personally believe yes, there is a clear fear of unknown; there's a lot of risk aversions in science and technology. They want predictability in everything they do, and it starts from people. It starts from investors. It starts from the regulators. You see that mindset across the society.

We'll need to revise the tired assumption that people automatically become more conservative as they grow older.

Coming out was crucial to changing attitudes about gays and lesbians: will people feel differently about abortion if they know their mother, their aunt, or their friend had one?

Take a look at public opinion. About 70 percent of the population, in the polls, said the [Vietnam ] war was fundamentally wrong and immoral, not a mistake. And that attitude lasted as long as polls were taken in the early '80s.

I think we have cultural bias and practice some ethnocentrism when it comes to ethnic food in America.

We are very hip on the fact that America's always No. 1. On this we are not, in terms of the number of women in our legislative branches and obviously as head of state. We need to push on that. I hate to say this: It isn't all men's fault. I think some of it is our own attitude and approach. Some of it very healthy, that women want to make choices about their lives and how they want to spend their time, and what they value.