Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.
Stephen KingRead
We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics - trying to play a serious part in the world - to a culture that's really entertainment-based.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a shift in societal values from serious pursuits to a focus on entertainment.
Stephen King's quote highlights the transition in modern culture from traditional domains such as manufacturing and politics, which were once central to societal involvement and progress, towards a predominant focus on entertainment. This shift suggests that society now tends to prioritize leisure and entertainment over serious engagement with important issues, raising questions about the impact this may have on individual and collective progress.
In practice
Use this quote to initiate a discussion about the state of modern society in a classroom setting.
Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.
Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.
Hairstyles change, and skirt lengths, and slang, but high school administrations? Never.
Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.
That's the day's business. Thinking. Thinking and isolation, because it doesn't matter if you pass the time of day with someone or not; in the end, you're alone. He seemed to have put in as many miles in his brain as he had with his feet. The thoughts kept coming and there was no way to deny them.
Late last night and the night before, tommyknockers, tommyknockers knocking on my door. I wanna go out, don't know if I can 'cuz I'm so afraid of the tommyknocker man.
Africa is our center of gravity, our cultural and spiritual mother and father, our beating heart, no matter where we live on the face of this earth.
As popular culture becomes more presentist, we move away from entertainment as the vicarious experience of a narrative - as watching someone else's story - and much more toward enacting one's own story. Moving away from myths and toward fantasy role-playing games, away from movies and toward videogames.
Food should be cheap, and labor should be cheap, and everything should be the same no matter where you go; whether it's a McDonald's in Germany or one in California, it should be the same. And this message is destroying cultures around the world. Needless to say, agriculture goes with it.
I was torn between the Americanness my mom wanted for me and the Mexicanness my father wanted - they were wrestling for cultural influence over me.
In many tribal cultures, it was said that if the boys were not initiated into manhood, if they were not shaped by the skills and love of elders, then they would destroy the culture. If the fires that innately burn inside youths are not intentionally and lovingly added to the hearth of community, they will burn down the structures of culture, just to feel the warmth.
What are you going to do to preserve a tradition that is the peculiar and unique culture that Judaism inculcates? The American Jewish community is not going to survive by lining up against its common enemy.
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