A few years ago, a priest working in a slum section of a European city was asked why he was doing it, and replied, 'So that the rumor of God may not completely disappear.

Even if one is interested only in one's own society, which is one's prerogative, one can understand that society much better by comparing it with others.

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

The past is malleable and flexible, changing as our recollection interprets and re-explains what has happened.

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

He who has the bigger stick has the better chance of imposing his definitions of reality.