S. Mehdi

“Who needs me?” is a question of character which suffers a radical challenge in modern capitalism. The system radiates indifference. It does so in terms of the outcomes of human striving, as in winner-take-all markets, where there is little connection between risk and reward. It radiates indifference in the organization of absence and trust, where there is no reason to be needed. And it does so through reengineering of institutions in which people are treated as disposable. Such practices obviously and brutally diminish the sense of mattering as a person, of being necessary to others. It could be said that capitalism was always thus. But not in the same way. The indifference of the old class-bound capitalism was starkly material; the indifference which radiates out of flexible capitalism is more personal because the system itself is less starkly etched, less legible in form.”
― Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism

“مترسک: هیچ فکرشو کردی؟ تو با مخالفتت منو ترسناکتر از اونچه هستم نشون میدی. این خودش خیلی خوبه. چون دیگه کسی جرئت نمی کنه با من در بیفته”
― بهرام بیضایی, چهار صندوق

“به جـان، جـوشم که جـویای ِ تـو بـاشم

خـَسی بـر مـوج ِ دریای ِ تـو بـاشم

تـمـام آرزوهـای منـی، کـاش

یـکی از آرزوهـای ِ تـو بـاشم”
― شفیعی کدکنی

“We first become aware of freedom or its opposite in our intercourse with others, not in the intercourse with ourselves.”
― Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future