49 quotes
It is clear that every civilization undergoes a process of historical change. We can see that a civilization comes into existence, passes through a long experience, and eventually goes out of existence.
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)
The West believes that man and the universe are both complex and that the apparently discordant parts of each can be put into a reasonably workable arrangement with a little good will, patience, and experimentation.
Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1966)
In its final stages the civilization becomes a dualism of almost totalitarian imperial power and an amorphous mass culture of atomized individuals.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)
Men have social needs. They have a need for other people; they have a need to love and be loved.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)
One of the chief reasons for the widespread fear of the Huns rested on their ability to travel very long distances in relatively short periods. This ability may well have been based on their use of horseshoes.
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)
The fundamentalist position on biblical interpretation, with its emphasis on the explicit, complete, final, and authoritarian nature of Scripture, is a very late, minority view quite out of step with the Western tradition.
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)
The basis of social relationships is reciprocity: if you cooperate with others, others will cooperate with you.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)
Persons, personalities if you wish, can only be made in communities.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)
A community is made up of intimate relationships among diversified types of individuals--a kinship group, a local group, a neighborhood, a village, a large family.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)
Western ideology believed that the world was good because it was made by God in six days and that at the end of each day He looked at His work and said that it was good.
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)
The problem of meaning today is the problem of how the diverse and superficially self-contradictory experiences of men can be put into a consistent picture that will provide contemporary man with a convincing basis from which to live and to act.
Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1966)
When you destroy people's religious expression, they will establish secularized religions like Marxism.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)
Another aspect of the nineteenth century propaganda system is the increasing emphasis upon material desires.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)
The link between a society, whether it be made up of communities or individuals, and a state is this: Power rests on the ability to satisfy human needs.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)
The range of human potentialities is also the range of human needs because of man's vital drive that impels him to seek to realize his potentialities. this drive is even more mysterious than the potentialities it seeks to realize.
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)
In fact, violence as a symbol of our growing irrationality has had an increasing role in activity for its own sake, when no possible justification could be made that the activity was seeking to resolve a problem.
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)
Our society has so cluttered our lives with artifacts [man-made things]... and organizational structures that [our] moment to moment relationships with nature are almost impossible.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)
Western civilization presents one of the most difficult tasks for historical analysis, because it is not yet finished, because we are a part of it and lack perspective, and because it presents considerable variation from our pattern of historical change.
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)
These seven stages we shall name as follows:
1. Mixture
2. Gestation
3. Expansion
4. Age of Conflict
5. Universal Empire
6. Decay
7. Invasion
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)
...empires and civilizations do not collapse because of deficiencies on the military or the political levels.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)