Todd Gitlin

Todd Gitlin

15 quotes

Biography

Todd Alan Gitlin was an American sociologist, political activist and writer, novelist, and cultural commentator. He wrote about the mass media, politics, intellectual life, and the arts for both popular and scholarly publications.

"Нe had made a transition that others had not, from revolutionary and radical politics to a more practical politics, a sort of left wing of the possible."

Todd Gitlin

"He was particularly critical of the violent protest tactics of the Weather Underground."

Todd Gitlin

"American movies and music deliver themes of freedom, innocence, and power that appeal to others - partly because America itself was put together out of a multiplicity of national traditions."

Todd Gitlin

"American movies and music deliver themes of freedom, innocence, and power that appeal to others - partly because America itself was put together out of a multiplicity of national traditions."

Todd Gitlin

"The mobilisation which Bush has been able to perform since 11 September 2001 has to be fought - at least by Americans - in the name of a wise, honourable and democratic patriotism."

Todd Gitlin

"There is a fuzzy but real distinction that can and I believe should be made, between patriotism, which is attachment to a way of life, and nationalism, which is the insistence that your way of life deserves to rule over other ways of life."

Todd Gitlin

"Some versions of patriotism come close to the tribal, which we all want to surpass, and some don't."

Todd Gitlin

"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."

Todd Gitlin

"I first came to think about media and politics in the late 1960s, having observed some distortions up close, but since then I wouldn't say that my personal experience has remained an important motive for my writing about media."

Todd Gitlin

"My position is not that John Kerry is either Jesus Christ or the prophet Mohammad. My position is that John Kerry is the possibility of restarting politics."

Todd Gitlin

"Right now, we have no possibility of politics because we have a one-party state."

Todd Gitlin

"I am concerned about how to reverse the process by which a fundamentalist right and a corporate elite were able to seize power in the United States."

Todd Gitlin

"I don't think anyone in the media thinks strategically about society."

Todd Gitlin

"Navigation is power of a limited sort - it enables us to manage the immensity of the media torrent."

Todd Gitlin

"The only people available to change the world are the people now living in it, with all the beliefs they bring along - however retrograde those beliefs may appear to those of us who see ourselves as enlightened."

Todd Gitlin