Theodore Roszak

About

Theodore Roszak (November 15, 1933 – July 5, 2011) was an American academic and novelist who concluded his academic career as Professor Emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay. He is best known for his 1969 text The Making of a Counter Culture.

Quotes from Theodore Roszak

J. Robert Oppenheimer, witnessing the first test of a nuclear weapon, confessed to tasting sin. But he and all his colleagues knew from the beginning what lay waiting at the end of the project. And which was the stronger flavor, the sin, or the satisfaction of having stolen fire from the gods?

—Theodore Roszak

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nuclear weapons gods sin

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All revolutionary changes are unthinkable until they happen — and then they are understood to be inevitable.

—Theodore Roszak

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change revolution inevitiability

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Once, perhaps, the God-intoxicated few could abscond to the wild frontiers, the forests, the desert places to keep alive the perennial wisdom that they harbored. But no longer. They must now become a political force or their tradition perishes. Soon enough, there will be no solitude left for the saints to roam but its air will shudder with a noise of great engines that drowns out all prayers.

—Theodore Roszak

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solitude politics God wisdom society prayer frontier

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Suddenly, it becomes a subversion of progress to assert the common-sense principle that communities exist for the health and enjoyment of those who live in them, not for the convenience of those who drive through them, fly over them, or exploit their real estate for profit.

—Theodore Roszak

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When industrial pollutants finally make the air unbreathable, we will be advised to cover the cities over with plastic domes and air-condition them. Technological optimism is the snake oil of urban industrialism.

—Theodore Roszak

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air breathing pollution domes

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