THE GOOD CITIZEN

"What kind of species are we? What leads us to think that the tradition of struggles for decency and dignity can be preserved into the twenty-first century? Or will it be the case that we shall witness in the twenty-first century the unleashing of new, unnameable and indescribable forms of agony and anguish? At the moment, we are right to fear the emergence of ancient tribalism that are revitalized under the aegis of an uncontested global capitalism, a movement accompained by the gangsterization of community, nation, and the globe.
[...] When I examine the present state of American democracy, I believe we are living in one of the most terrifying moments in the history fo this nation. We are experiencing a lethal and unprecedented linkage of relative economic decline (i.e., working class wage stagnation), cultural decay, and political letargy. No democracy can survive with a middle class so insecure that it is willing to accept any authoritarian option in order to provide some sense of normalcy and security in their lives".
Cornel West, The Moral Obligations of Living in a Democratic Society, 1999

"The burden of our civilization is not merely, as many suppose, that the product of industry is ill-distribuited or its conduct tyrannical, or its operation interrupted by embottered disagreements. It is that industry itself has come to hold a position of exclusive predominance among human interests [...]".
R. H. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society, 1920

"All the social nightmares of our day seem to focus on some unending and inescapable form of mob rule. The most permanent kind of mob rule is not anarchy, nor is it the dictatorship that regularizes anarchy, nor even the imposed police state depicted by Orwell. It is rather the selfpolicing state, the society incapable of formulating an articulate criticism of itself and of developing a will to act in its light".
Northrop Frye, The Modern Century, 1967-1969

"Individualism lies at the very core of American culture. [...] There is a biblical individualism and a civic individualism as well as a utilitarian and an expressive individualism. [...]
Modern individualism seems to be producing a way of life that is neither individually nor socially viable, yet a return to traditional forms would be to return to intolerable discrimination and oppression".
Robert N. Bellah and Others, Habits of the Heart, 1996

"People are going to know who's responsible. And they're going to get the news - the true news - quickly and dimply and entertaingly. And no special interests will be allowed to interfere with th thruth of that news. I will also provide them with a fighting and tireless champion of their rights as citizens and human beings - Signed - Charles Foster Kane".
Orson Welles, Citizen Kane, 1940