Steve Greenleaf

“The point was simply that people had to wake up before they could be expected to embrace full citizenship. And it seemed better to emphasize a subtle reshaping of consciousness than dramatic political action, for Mumford shared Melville’s distrust of revolutions: “Revolution in the light of the constant miscarriage of every revolution from 1789 onward is nothing more than the form through which a decadent civilization commits suicide.” Basically, the first order of business was to cultivate human beings who would never allow demagogues to sway them, who were self-critical enough to resist movements like Nazism; the world could have no more of Melville’s “moderate men.” “The danger to human society today,” Mumford asserted, “does not come solely from the active barbarians: it comes even more perhaps from those who have in their hearts assented to the barbarian’s purposes.” Look to your heart, Mumford was saying. And fortify it with an understanding of our ancestors’ sacrifices and our vast inheritance.”
― Aaron Sachs, Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times

“Nations reel and stagger on their way; they
make hideous mistakes; they commit frightful
wrongs; they do great and beautiful things.
And shall we not best guide humanity by
telling the truth about all this, so far as the
truth is ascertainable? —W. E. B. DuBois,
“The Propaganda of History,” 1935”
― Jill Lepore, This America: The Case for the Nation

“What I dislike about Paris,” he told his friend Jacques Chevalier, “is the lack of sunshine, the lack of air, the lack of silence.… People talk about progress. But every new advance is accompanied by the invention of a new kind of noise: trains, cars, aeroplanes.… I would have loved to live in the countryside.”6 He envied the peaceful existence of forest rangers, who lived among the trees, breathing in pure air away from the commotion of the city and enjoying levels of freedom he could no longer hope for.”
― Emily Herring, Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People

“All history is the history of longing. The details of policy; the migration of peoples; the abstractions that nations kill and die for, including the abstraction of “the nation” itself—all can be ultimately traced to the viscera of human desire. Human beings have wanted innumerable, often contradictory things—security and dignity, power and domination, sheer excitement and mere survival, unconditional love and eternal salvation—and those desires have animated public life. The political has always been personal.”
― Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877–1920