The schools are there to regulate the flow of young competitors into the job market. - Daniel Quinn

The problem is that man’s conquest of the world has itself devastated the world.

Obviously Mother Culture must be finished off if you’re going to survive, and that’s something the people of your culture can do. She has no existence outside your minds. Once you stop listening to her, she ceases to exist.

This may be totally wrong, I told him. This may just be the simple truth, but this is what I hear: 'sure, you can save the world, but you're really going to hate it. It's really going to be painful.'
"Why is it going to be painful?"
"Because of all the stuff we have to give up. But as I say, this may just be the simple truth."
"No, it's not the simple truth, Julie. It's Mother Culture's simple lie. Although Mother Culture is a metaphor, she really does behave uncannily like a real person sometimes. Why do you think she would tell this particular lie?"
"She wants to discourage us from changing, I guess."
"Of course. Her whole function is to preserve the status quo. This is not a peculiarity of your Mother Culture. In every culture, it's the function of Mother Culture to preserve the status quo."