Onur

“This changing international environment brought to the fore the fundamental cultural differences between Asian and American civilizations. At the broadest level the Confucian ethos pervading many Asian societies stressed the values of authority, hierarchy, the subordination of individual rights and interests, the importance of consensus, the avoidance of confrontation, “saving face,” and, in general, the supremacy of the state over society and of society over the individual. In addition, Asians tended to think of the evolution of their societies in terms of centuries and millennia and to give priority to maximizing long-term gains. These attitudes contrasted with the primacy in American beliefs of liberty, equality, democracy, and individualism, and the American propensity to distrust government, oppose authority, promote checks and balances, encourage competition, sanctify human rights, and to forget the past, ignore the future, and focus on maximizing immediate gains. The sources of conflict are in fundamental differences in society and culture.”
― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

“There is no culture without a tomb and no tomb without a culture; in the end the tomb is the first and only cultural symbol. The above-ground tomb does not have to be invented. It is the pile of stones in which the victim of the unanimous stoning is buried. It is the first pyramid.”
― René Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World

“The dangerous clashes of the future are likely to arise from the interaction of Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance, and Sinic assertiveness.”
― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

“In the Hautes-Alpes region, it was still believed in 1962 that witches often assumed animal form and entered houses through the chimneys, keyholes, or cat doors. When in the form of a cat, it would sit on the chests of those who were sleeping and press down on them, preventing their breathing.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices