In science, as in love, a concentration on technique is likely to lead to impotence.

If the cultural elite has its way, the U.S. will be much more like Europe

Institutions provide procedures through which human conduct is patterned, compelled to go, in grooves deemed desirable by society. And this trick is performed by making these grooves appear to the individual as the only possible ones.

If you say simply that pressures toward democracy are created by the market, I would say yes

We also have a cultural phenomenon: the emergence of a global culture, or of cultural globalization

There are times in history when the dark drums of God can barely be heard amid the noises of this world. Then it is only in moments of silence, which are rare and brief, that their beat can be faintly discerned. There are other times. These are the times when God is heard in rolling thunder, when the earth trembles and the treetops bend under the force of [God’s] voice. It is not given to men [and women] to make God speak. It is only given to them to live and to think in such a way that, if God’s thunder should come, they will not have stopped their ears.

Even in a society as tightly controlled as Singapore's, the market creates certain forces which perhaps in the long run may lead to democracy