Capitalism

·         Capitalism: Money and competition drive us

Explanation:an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

o   “That's just the point: an honest and sensitive man opens his heart, and the man of business goes on eating - and then he eats you up.” 

o   “Money is the honey of humanity.” 

Feminism

·         Feminism: Gender is not a divider

Explanation:the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities

o   “Indeed, in that sense we’re all rather often almost like mad people, only with the slight difference that the ‘sick’ are somewhat madder than we are, so that it’s necessary to draw a line here.” 

o   “What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be.” 

Utilitarianism

·         Utilitarianism: Do good because it’s the best choice

Explanation:the belief that a morally good action is one that helps the greatest number of people

o   “What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?”

o   “Break what must be broken, once for all, that's all, and take the suffering on oneself.” 

o   “No, it is not a commonplace, sir! If up to now, for example, I have been told to 'love my neighbor,' and I did love him, what came of it?. . . What came of it was that I tore my caftan in two, shared it with my neighbor, and we were both left half naked, in accordance with the Russian proverb which says: If you chase several hares at once, you won't overtake any one of them. But science says: Love yourself before all, because everything in the world is based on self-interest. If you love only yourself, you will set your affairs up properly, and your caftan will also remain in one piece. And economic truth adds that the more properly arranged personal affairs and, so to speak, whole caftans there are in society, the firmer its foundations are and the better arranged its common cause. It follows that by acquiring for everyone, as it were, and working so that my neighbor will have something more than a torn caftan, not from private, isolated generosities now, but as a result of universal prosperity.” 

Socialism

·         Socialism: Meet halfway to find a balance

Explanation:a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies

o   “The vast mass of mankind is mere material, and only exists in order by some great effort, by some mysterious process, by means of some crossing of races and stocks, to bring into the world at last perhaps one man out of a thousand with a spark of independence.” 

Existentialism

·         Existentialism: Thinking about thinking

Explanation:chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad

o    “We're always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like a village bath-house, grimy, and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is. Sometimes, you know, I can't help feeling that that's what it is.”  

o   “Dreams appear much more prominent and clear when the dreamer is in an unhealthy state - they have an extraordinary semblance of reality. Most monstrous pictures are put together but all the circumstances are so subtly interwoven the details so artistically harmonious in every minute respect as to defy human imitation. Such morbid dreams are always recollected for very long and produce strong impressions on the disordered and already excited organs of the dreamer.” 

Social Darwinism

·         Social Darwinism: The weak will fall if they do not fight

Explanation:a sociological theory that sociocultural advance is the product of intergroup conflict and competition and the socially elite classes (as those possessing wealth and power) possess biological superiority in the struggle for existence

o   “Power is given only to him who dares to stoop and take it ... one must have the courage to dare.” 

o   “You see I kept asking myself then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid—and I know they are—yet I won't be wiser?”

o   “People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for saying something new, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily so, in fact.” 

Communism

·         Communism: Big Brother takes care of all

Explanation:a way of organizing a society in which the government owns the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) and there is no privately owned property

o   “Or renounce life altogether! Accept fate obediently as it is, once and for all, and stifle everything in myself, renouncing any right to act, to live, to love. ”