"We can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion. The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in …
"We can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion. The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in which we live. And this is why all efforts to escape from the grimness of the present into nostalgia for a still intact past, or into the anticipated oblivion of a better future, are vain."
- Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
In short. Be here now. Present and accounted for. If not now, when?
"That even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination, and that such illumination might well come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering, and often weak light that some men and women, in their lives and their works, will kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time span that was given to them...."
lin•, "If not now, when?" is the question. If it is not "now"*, then I expect the "when" will be far, far too late to avoid destruction of the planet, not just our system of government.
*To quote my mother, with her somewhat recalcitrant first born (me) "Right goddam NOW".
"We can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion. The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in which we live. And this is why all efforts to escape from the grimness of the present into nostalgia for a still intact past, or into the anticipated oblivion of a better future, are vain."
- Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
In short. Be here now. Present and accounted for. If not now, when?
"That even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination, and that such illumination might well come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering, and often weak light that some men and women, in their lives and their works, will kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time span that was given to them...."
- Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times
lin•, "If not now, when?" is the question. If it is not "now"*, then I expect the "when" will be far, far too late to avoid destruction of the planet, not just our system of government.
*To quote my mother, with her somewhat recalcitrant first born (me) "Right goddam NOW".