"Recognizing that normalizing cultural forms exist does not entail, as some writers have argued, the view that women are 'cultural dopes', blindly submitting to oppressive regimes of beauty. Although many people are mystified (insisting, for example, that the current fitness craze is only about health or that plastic surgery to 'correct' a 'Jewish' or 'black' nose is just an individual preference), often there will be a high degree of consciousness involved in the decision to diet or have cosmetic surgery. People know the routes to success in this culture -- they are advertised widely enough -- and they are not 'dopes' to pursue them. Often, given the sexism, racism, and narcissism of the culture, their personal happiness and economic security depends on it."

-- Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body

"Humanity is not an essence to be realised, but a pragmatic construction, a perspective, to be developed through the articulation of the variety of individual projects, of differences, which constitute our humanity in the broadest sense."

-- Jeffrey Weeks, Principal Positions

Guilin, China, 2005

"The beauty of the Internet is that it connects people. The value is in the other people. If we start to believe that the Internet itself is an entity that has something to say, we're devaluing those people and making ourselves into idiots ...

"I've participated in a number of elite, well-paid wikis and Meta-surveys lately and have had a chance to observe the results. I have even been part of a wiki about wikis. What I've seen is a loss of insight and subtlety, a disregard for the nuances of considered opinions, and an increased tendency to enshrine the official or normative beliefs of an organization. Why isn't everyone screaming about the recent epidemic of inappropriate uses of the collective? It seems to me the reason is that bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology."

-- Jaron Lanier, "Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism", Edge

"He who is master cannot be free."

-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"At some point, in fact, it might be asked if bears are a subset of gay culture or simply a culture to themselves. From Ptown, it's pretty clear to me that the "circuit" set, for example, has next to nothing in common with bears and vice versa. Even the leather bars recognize bears as a discrete subculture. The impression of gayness that you get from, say, the New York Times' "Sunday Styles" section, or the excrescent tripe in "Queer As Folk," is light years away from what the bear subculture represents. In this sense, bears might be "post-gay" inasmuch as their fundamental identity is far more complex than any simple expression of their same-sex attraction."

-- Andrew Sullivan, "I Am Bear, Hear Me Roar!", Salon