# The Madness of Crowds  ## Metadata - Author: [[Douglas Murray]] - Full Title: The Madness of Crowds - Category: #books ## Highlights - The products of the system cannot reproduce the stability of the system that produced them. ([Location 214](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07VK9J63L&location=214)) - one prerequisite for avoiding perpetual confrontation is an ability to listen to people’s words and hold some trust in them. ([Location 360](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07VK9J63L&location=360)) - In society at large, when people come out as gay they are celebrated for having arrived at their natural end-point. ([Location 466](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07VK9J63L&location=466)) - since the phrase ‘It’s only a phase’ is offensive for some people, the idea that it might actually be true for some people is unsayable. ([Location 479](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07VK9J63L&location=479)) - where the culture in the recent past would have seen the gay kiss as the aberration – the falling away from the norm – today the culture suggests that the gay kiss is the moment of revelatory truth. ([Location 496](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07VK9J63L&location=496)) - sometimes when it is nearly impossible to tell what is being said, almost anything can be said and exceptionally dishonest arguments can be smuggled in under the guise of complexity. ([Location 1189](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07VK9J63L&location=1189)) - We have spent the first years of this century trying to understand a communications revolution so huge that it may yet make the invention of the printing press look like a footnote in history. ([Location 2070](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07VK9J63L&location=2070)) - ‘Debate means you are trying to win. Dialectic means you are using disagreement to discover what is true. ([Location 2444](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07VK9J63L&location=2444))