In a time of social fragmentation, vulgarity becomes a way of life. To be shocking becomes more important - and often more profitable - than to be civil or creative or truly original.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how in fragmented societies, shock value often overshadows civility and originality.
Al Gore's quote addresses the notion that in contemporary society, where communication and relationships are often disjointed, sensationalism and vulgarity have become prevalent. This shift in values suggests that people prioritize attention-grabbing behaviors over meaningful creativity or civil discourse, leading to a culture that rewards shock and superficiality rather than depth and originality.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech discussing modern media and its impact on society.
Global warming is real and human activity is the main cause. The consequences are mainly negative and headed toward catastrophic, unless we act. However, the good news is that we can meet this challenge. It is not too late, and we have everything we need to get started.
The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.
I think it's harder for people than it should be. But as more and more of us become carbon neutral and change the patterns in our lives to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem, we are now beginning to see the changes in policy that are needed.
We have a planetary emergency. We have to find a way to create, in the generation of those alive today, a sense of generational mission.
CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally... Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past.
Well-established theories collapse under the weight of new facts and observations which cannot be explained, and then accumulate to the point where the once useful theory is clearly obsolete.
Well, one hopes that if you're really related to the core of your particular culture, you have profound commitments to it, and that you are aware of how much you can strain it before you do violence to its essential nature.
Even though I spent the first five years of my life in Nagasaki, going to Japan can be really difficult. Even if they know I've been brought up in the West, they still expect me to understand all the subtleties of their culture, and if I get it wrong, it matters much more than if a British person gets it wrong. I find it intimidating.
Hip-hop has done more for race relations than most cultural icons; and I say save Martin Luther King, because his 'I Have A Dream' speech was realized when Obama was elected into office.
Sharing food has always had a central place in civilized societies; it's no accident that so many of our cultural, religious and patriotic rituals are involved with eating.
Branding says a lot about luxury and about exclusion and about the choices that manufacturers make, but I think that what society does with it after it's produced is something else. And the African-American community has always been expert at taking things and repurposing them toward their own ends.
In a lot of ways I think food is starting to take the place in culture that rock and roll took 30 years ago, in that eating has become incredibly political. And just as the street has always dictated fashions on music and other things, it’s starting to happen that way in food.
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