476 quotes by sociologists for you to enjoy

We shall never resolve the enigma of the relation between the negative foundations of greatness and that greatness itself. Jean Baudrillard

Negative Resolve Relation Shall Never Between Greatness Itself Enigma Foundations

The abjection of our political situation is the only true challenge today. Only facing up to this situation in all its desperation can help us get out of it. Jean Baudrillard

Today Desperation Political Challenge Situation Our Out Abject Only Facing True Up Political Situation Get Us Help

The South: What is this place? What's different about it? Is it different anymore? Good questions. Old ones, too. People have been asking them for decades. Some of us even make our living by asking them, but we still don't agree about the answers. John Shelton Reed

Good People Old Living Too Our Some About Make Answers Still Been South Questions Decades Different Anymore Place Them Us Asking Old Ones Agree Even

You ask people what their ethnicity is, and a lot of Scots-Irish people either don't know or if they know it they just don't acknowledge it. It's not something they really identify with. They're just plain old Americans, plain vanilla. I don't think they are a self-conscious voting bloc. John Shelton Reed

You People Voting Old Think Vanilla Something Self-Conscious Know Identify Lot American Just Acknowledge Either Plain Ask Really Ethnicity

Every Southerner, I think, knows people like Bill Clinton, maybe not quite as smart and maybe not quite as liberal, but kind of a glad-handing, country-club yuppie Southerner. The problem is we don't have labels for middle-class Southerners. John Shelton Reed

People Problem Smart Every Think Liberal Kind Like Knows Clinton Labels Southerner Southerners Quite Maybe Bill Bill Clinton

Country music historically has been sort of middle-aged people's music. John Shelton Reed

Music People Country Has-Been Country Music Sort Been Historically Middle-Aged

I think there's a suspicion in the South of people putting on airs. You see it in most successful Southern politicians, but you also see it in someone like Richard Petty, who may be a multimillionaire stock car driver, but he's also beloved because he has a nice self-deprecatory way about him. John Shelton Reed

You People Car Politicians Nice Petty Think Way See About Someone Driver He Putting Like Most Also Him Because South Stock Southern May Suspicion Richard Successful Who Beloved

If you care to define the South as a poor, rural region with lousy race relations, that South survives only in geographical shreds and patches and most Southerners don't live there any more. John Shelton Reed

I do believe states' rights was a sound doctrine that got hijacked by some unsavory customers for a while - like, 150 years or so. I'm professionally obliged to believe that knowledge is better than ignorance, but some kinds of forgetting are OK with me. John Shelton Reed

Me Knowledge Ignorance Rights Better Believe States OK Kinds Some Obliged Unsavory Hijacked Like Doctrine Got Sound Years Than Forgetting While Customers Professionally

I don't think massification and globalization and all those other 'izations' are necessarily hostile to regionalism. John Shelton Reed

Think Other Those Hostile Globalization Necessarily

Maybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history, but Southern identity now has more to do with food, accents, manners, music than the Confederate past. It's something that's open to both races, a variety of ethnic groups and people who move here. John Shelton Reed

Music Food History People Past Confederate Manners Something More Variety Both Open Identity Accents Yankee Been Years Brainwashed Southern Than Move Maybe Races Ethnic Ethnic Groups Who Groups Now Here