Ellen Willis Quotes & Sayings

“The struggle of democratic secularism, religious tolerance, individual freedom and feminism against authoritarian patriarchal religion, culture and morality is going on all over the world - including the Islamic world, where dissidents are regularly jailed, killed, exiled or merely intimidated and silenced.”

“My deepest impulses are optimistic, an attitude that seems to me as spiritually necessary and proper as it is intellectually suspect.”

“By continually pushing the message that we have the right to gratification now, consumerism at its most expansive encouraged a demand for fulfillment that could not so easily be contained by products.”

“I believe that we are all, openly or secretly, struggling against one or another kind of nihilism.”

“Mass consumption, advertising, and mass art are a corporate Frankenstein; while they reinforce the system, they also undermine it.”

“On one level the sixties revolt was an impressive illustration of Lenin's remark that the capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with.”

“You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to surmise that war has a perverse appeal for the human race, nor is the attraction limited to religious fanatics committing mass murder and suicide for the greater glory of God.”

“For the most part, Americans speak of culture and politics as if they were two separate realms.”

“Give people the power to shape their lives to their liking, and their souls will take care of themselves.”

“As with fascism, the rise of Islamic totalitarianism has partly to do with its populist appeal to the class resentments of an economically oppressed population and to anger at political subordination and humiliation.”