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Membership is not a token of which there is a limited supply. Rather, national membership is a method, a way of being in the world, an approach toward others. Membership in a small group may indeed be limited, but on a national scale,
...more
Abstract membership has unlimited supply. But practical membership has resource implications. Citizenship in the United States, for example, is unlimited, but practically it has to be limited by the fact that it will imply a dwindling supply of both material and service resources. This does not mean that all those who wish to exclude immigrants do so on these grounds. What it means is that no state can make citizenship infinitely open without paying huge resource costs. We are all citizens of the world. It costs us nothing and this is unlimited as every child born today automatically is a citizen of the world. But real decisions are not made globally. We do not have a global fire service or a global police force. We have bordred units where political decisions are made.
“A man may persuade himself, by the most logical reasoning, that he will greatly benefit his health by swallowing live frogs; and, thus rationally convinced, he may swallow a first frog, then the second; but at the third his stomach will revolt. In the same way, the growing influence of the doctrine on my way of thinking came up against the resistance of my whole nature.”
― The Captive Mind
― The Captive Mind
“Fate whispers to the warrior, 'You can not withstand the storm.'
The warrior whispers back, 'I am the storm.'
Unknown”
―
The warrior whispers back, 'I am the storm.'
Unknown”
―
“Condorcet suggested that ‘force cannot, like
opinion, endure for long unless the tyrant extends his empire far enough afield to
hide from the people, whom he divides and rules, the secret that real power lies
not with the oppressors but with the oppressed’. The ‘mind forg’d manacles’, as
William Blake called them, are as real as the hand-forged ones.”
― The Global Minotaur: America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy
opinion, endure for long unless the tyrant extends his empire far enough afield to
hide from the people, whom he divides and rules, the secret that real power lies
not with the oppressors but with the oppressed’. The ‘mind forg’d manacles’, as
William Blake called them, are as real as the hand-forged ones.”
― The Global Minotaur: America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy
“Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales—because they find them romantic.”
― Orthodoxy
― Orthodoxy
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