Jose Ovalle’s Reviews > Localism in the Mass Age: A Front Porch Republic Manifesto > Status Update

“The invisibly of the effects of our choices is perhaps our greatest luxury”

“If you announced to your neighbors that you were a light to the nations, they would keep an eye on you. But suddenly, when we leap up to the level of the nation-state, all of this otherwise offensive behavior becomes (allegedly) patriotic. Can we really believe that this is so?“

“Insomuch as human beings are not machines, nor merely the sum of their physical appetites, the unbridled pursuit of efficiency and avidity on behalf of more money is not a ruling purpose worthy of our obedience, nor one conducive to cultural or psychological coherence, and no society can long survive its conversion to such dehumanizing lies”

“For example, the homo œconomius, the creature who makes all decisions based on a comparison of bundles of utilities rooted in pure self-interest, is as much a mythical creature as the minotaur or the unicorn; starting with this mythical creature, you can only create a mythical economics.” 😤

“For all politics and, for that matter, economics must make a fundamental choice: they can either be a quest for a common good among diverse interests or a lust for power by which one faction seeks to dominate all the others.”

“People with local attachments, by contrast, will ask the question that never gets injected into national debates over war and peace: What are the domestic costs of this crusade? Loving their block, they will not wish to bomb Iraq. Loyal to a neighborhood, they will not send its young men and women across the sea to kill and die for causes wholly unrelated to local life.“