Todd Gitlin
Todd Gitlin
Todd Gitlinis an American sociologist, political writer, novelist, and cultural commentator. He has written widely on the mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSociologist
CountryUnited States of America
party two differences
I don't for the life of me understand how anybody could contemplate the results of the 2000 election in the US and say that electoral politics doesn't matter any more, and that Ralph Nader was right when he said there is no difference between the two parties.
movement may awful
We may repeat the awful revolutionary history of the 20th century because of the vulnerability of social movements to demagoguery.
justice movement may
Today's global justice movement may be the biggest, most diverse and energetic in history.
winning people convince
To win power anywhere you have to convince people that you can do something for them.
desire moguls driven
The moguls are driven by their respective desires for profit - period.
Sure, I've often been misrepresented - anyone frequently quoted has this experience.
people use culture
So American culture is itself a hybrid and lends itself to use in other people's hybrids.
media navigation immensity
Navigation is power of a limited sort - it enables us to manage the immensity of the media torrent.
biographies mills sociologists
Mills insisted that a sociologist's proper subject was the intersection of biography and history.
fun emotional america
Like Americans, people outside America want fun, want an emotional compensation for the utilitarianism and calculation that mark the rest of their lives.
framework
My business is the analytical framework.
american-sociologist enormity might taken
As I write at the end, if we step back and face the enormity of the torrent, then we have taken the first step to imagining what we might want to do about it.
almost american-sociologist bush crowd extend foot imaginable matter mindful policies square state sway watch
So every day I'm mindful as I watch the Bush crowd extend their sway into policies of every imaginable variety, and over almost every square foot of earth, that the control of the American state is a matter of urgency.
absurd american-sociologist chronic desire
The manufacture of desire isn't at the heart - if it isn't absurd to speak of a heart - of the media torrent. Chronic dissatisfaction is at the heart of the matter.