Jessie

“There is nothing wrong with underlining personal agency, but there is something unfair about using personal responsibility as a basis for assigning blame while simultaneously denying those who are being blamed the opportunity to exert agency in their lives”
― Paul Farmer, Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues

“Farmer points to what he calls "structural violence," which influences "the nature and distribution of extreme suffering." The book is, as he explains, "a physician-anthropologist's effort to reveal the ways in which the most basic right-the right to survive-is trampled in an age of great affluence." He argues: "Human rights violations are not accidents; they are not random in distribution or effect. Rights violations are, rather, symptoms of deeper pathologies of power and are linked intimately to the social conditions that so often determine who will suffer abuse and who will be shielded from harm.”
― Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor

“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.”
― Paul Farmer

“Do we see [human disparity] as a human predicament--an inescapable result of frailty of our existence? That would be correct had these sufferings been really inescapable, but they are far from that. Preventable diseases can indeed be prevented, curable ailments can certainly be cured, and controllable maladies call out for control. Rather than lamenting the adversity of nature, we have to look for a better comprehension of the social cuases of horror and also of our tolerance of societal abominations.”
― Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor