All Mary Douglas Quotes
The theory of cultural bias... is the idea that a culture is based on a particular form of organization. It can't be transplanted except to another variant of that organization.
Mary Douglas
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The natural response of the old-timers is to build a strong moral wall against the outside. This is where the world starts to be painted in black and white, saints inside, and sinners outside the wall.
Mary Douglas
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Just in our lifetime our society has become looser and more private, it becomes extremely difficult to hold to any permanent commitment whatever, least of all to organized religion.
Mary Douglas
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It is very reasonable to worry about the harm done by organized religion, and to prefer looser and more private arrangements.
Mary Douglas
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Every year the progress of advanced capitalist society makes our population consist of more and more isolates. This is because of the infrastructure of the economy, especially electronic communications.
Mary Douglas
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Religion can make it worse. Are you supposing that if people were encouraged to believe in a transcendent reality, and to be encouraged by grand rituals and music and preaching, to love their neighbors, then they would put jealousy and frustration aside?
Mary Douglas
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Mormons... are so strong, they can handle wealth, they are confident. I think it is because they are not bogged down by rules for equality, but have a firmly defined system of relative status and responsible command.
Mary Douglas
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Since 1970, relationships can be more volatile, jobs more ephemeral, geographical mobility more intensified, stability of marriage weaker.
Mary Douglas
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Pretensions to moral superiority are devastatingly destructive.
Mary Douglas
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Islam is in principle egalitarian, and has always had problems with power.
Mary Douglas
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It seems true that the growth of science and secularism made organized Christianity feel under threat.
Mary Douglas
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What did our nation ever do to provoke these madly vicious enemies? What is seen as injustice in one place is seen as just requital in the other.
Mary Douglas
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I am sure it must be true that people opt out of the mainstream society because they feel that there are going to be no rewards for them, if they stay.
Mary Douglas
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An escalating, violent tit-for-tat may lead to terrorism.
Mary Douglas
45% of people like this quote
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