{"quotes":[{"text":"Our current modes of rationality are not moving society forward into a better world. They are taking it further and further from that better world. Since the Renaissance these modes have worked. As long as the need for food, clothing and shelter is dominant they will continue to work. But now that for huge masses of people these needs no longer overwhelm everything else, the whole structure of reason, handed down to us from ancient times, is no longer adequate. It begins to be seen for what it really is...Emotionally hollow, esthetically meaningless and spiritually empty. That, today, is where it is at, and will continue to be at for a long time to come.","author":"Robert M. Pirsig","tags":["21st-century","american-culture","american-society","food-for-thought","modern-problems","philosophy"],"id":2705,"author_id":"Robert+M.+Pirsig"},{"text":"A nation lives by its myths and heroes. Many societies have survived defeat and invasion, even political and economic collapse. None has survived the corruption of its picture of itself. High and popular art are not in competition here. Both may help citizens decide what they are and what they admire. In our age, however, high art has given up speaking to the body of its fellow citizens. It devotes itself to technical displays that can appeal only to other technicians.","author":"E. Christian Kopff","tags":["american-culture","art-and-life","art-theory","culture","high-art","ideals","myth","pop-art"],"id":8129,"author_id":"E.+Christian+Kopff"},{"text":"I was once in San Francisco, and I parked in the only available space, which happened to be on the other side of the street. The law descended on me. Was I aware of how dangerous the manoeuvre I’d just made was? I looked at the law a bit blankly. What had I done wrong? I had, said the law, parked against the flow of traffic. Puzzled, I looked up and down the street. What traffic? I asked. The traffic that would be there, said the law, if there was any traffic. This was a bit metaphysical, even for me, so I explained, a bit lamely, that in England we just park wherever we can find a parking space available, and weren’t that fussy about which side of the street it was on. He looked at me aghast, as if I was lucky to have got out of a country of such wild and crazy car parkers alive, and promptly gave me a ticket. Clearly he would rather have deported me before my subversive ideas brought chaos and anarchy to streets that normally had to cope with nothing more alarming than a few simple assault rifles. Which, as we know, in the States are perfectly legal, and without which they would be overrun by herds of deer, overbearing government officers, and lawless British tea importers.","author":"Douglas Adams","tags":["american-culture","british-culture","law","traffic"],"id":8434,"author_id":"Douglas+Adams"},{"text":"Los Angeles is a city made up of refugees from better cities.","author":"J. Richard Singleton","tags":["america","american-culture","los-angeles","refugees"],"id":12863,"author_id":"J.+Richard+Singleton"},{"text":"Pop culture. Nobody does bullshit better than us. Right? China took over manufacturing. And the Middle East has us on fossil fuels. That's just geography and politics. We're a nation of whacko immigrants. Scavengers and con men. We crossed the ocean on faith, stole some land and stone-cold made up a whole country out of nothing but balls and bullshit. Superhero comics got invented by crazy genius Jews who showed up and revamped the refugee experience into a Man of Steel sent from Krypton with a secret identity.","author":"Damon Suede","tags":["american-culture","comics","cosplay","funny","geeks","superheros","sweet"],"id":20350,"author_id":"Damon+Suede"},{"text":"I was so tired of his being even-keeled in the face of all that was upsetting and ugly and illogical.","author":"Sara Nović","tags":["american-culture","croatia","ptsd","trauma","war"],"id":38314,"author_id":"Sara+Novi%C4%87"},{"text":"Alice is fictional. This isn't.","author":"Jess C. Scott","tags":["american-culture","dark-humor","group-think","groupthink","lady-gaga","mad-magazine","parodies","parody","pop-culture","popular-culture","resident-evil","satire","sheeple","short-story","simpsons","south-park","zombie-apocalypse","zombies"],"id":45325,"author_id":"Jess+C.+Scott"},{"text":"The only difference between having an affair here and having an affair there was that the American men would always ended up losing half of his estates over a woman he was infatuated just as much as the next tramp who would come his way, while Japanese men would only earn more respect from their subordinates through the possession of much younger women, as a sign of prowess and affluence, while their wives at home, as if there were rule books distributed nationally on the “proper” marriage etiquette for all young Japanese women to read before they enter into the matrimony, would turn a blind eye on their disloyalty quietly.","author":"Vann Chow","tags":["affair","american-culture","asia","asian","asian-culture","boyfriend","cultural-difference","disloyal","disloyalty","girlfriend","immoral","japan","love","love-affair","marriage","matrimony","men-and-women","morality","morals","not-loyal","office-romance","relationship","sarcastic","social-moral","wedding","women-and-men"],"id":50206,"author_id":"Vann+Chow"},{"text":"The races are like America's children. White people are the firstborn, so they were Dad's favorite. Black people are the second kids, the abused ones, so they still hate Dad. Latinos are the third, caught in the middle and always trying to make peace between the other siblings. Asians are the youngest, and get good marks in school, but basically are just trying to keep their heads down and not get involved. And Native Americans are the old uncle who owns a house and everyone else in the family was like, 'He's not using that! Let's move in!","author":"Colin Quinn","tags":["america","american-culture","american-history","americans","ethnic-stereotypes","ethnicity","race","racial-prejudice","racism","racism-and-culture","racism-in-america","stereotypes","stereotyping","u-s-culture"],"id":52776,"author_id":"Colin+Quinn"},{"text":"Woman's sexual problems are, in this sense, by-products of the suppression of her basic need to grow and fulfill her potentialities as a human being, potentialities which the mystique of feminine fulfillment ignores.","author":"Betty Friedan","tags":["american-culture","education","feminism","history","politics","social-science","women"],"id":55152,"author_id":"Betty+Friedan"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":55,"pages":6,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}