Nishant’s Reviews > Drawing the Line Once Again: Paul Goodman's Anarchist Writings > Status Update
Nishant
is on page 29 of 128
A free man, so long as he creates and goes by his clear and distinct ideas, can easily maintain in his soul many apparent contradictions; he is sure they will iron out; a loose system is the best system. But woe if at the same time he is persuaded into prejudices and coerced into conforming: then one day he will have the agony of drawing the line..We draw the line in their conditions; we proceed on our conditions.
— May 12, 2021 10:50PM
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Nishant’s Previous Updates
Nishant
is on page 55 of 128
“Men in authority are especially likely to be stupid because they are out of touch with concrete finite experience and instead keep interfering with other people’s initiative and making them stupid and anxious.”
— Jun 09, 2021 04:25AM
Nishant
is 35% done
“In natural ethics there is no such principle as the choice of the lesser of two evils. Such a principle is self-contradictory… The lesser evil is a sign that an interest has been allowed to develop in isolation until it now threatens even our lives. It is the isolation of the issue from its causes that restricts the choice to the lesser evil”
— Jun 08, 2021 12:35AM
Nishant
is on page 47 of 128
“most of the coercive conflicts that come to a vote are so nicely weighted with evils against each other that tossing a coin would also give a just decision”
— May 13, 2021 03:47PM
Nishant
is on page 44 of 128
“Nothing is more disheartening than to see an honest party or press, unwilling to lend itself to bad alternatives, that does not also continually produce a stream of good natural solutions. If a man cannot in fact invent a way out, what right has such a man to be libertarian on the issue at all? His negative criticism insults and disheartens the rest”
— May 13, 2021 01:32PM
Nishant
is on page 40 of 128
“Sociolatry is the concern felt by masses alienated from their deep natures for the smooth functioning of the industrial machine from which they believe they can get a higher standard of living and enjoy it in security.. it is a sociological standard energized by emulation and advertising, and cementing a sense of unanimity among the alienated”
— May 13, 2021 12:05PM
Nishant
is on page 40 of 128
“By “revolutionary” I here refer to the heirs of Rousseau and the French Revolution: the conviction that man is born free and is in institutional chains; that fraternity is the deepest political force and the fountain of social invention; and that socialism implies the absence of state or other coercive power.”
— May 13, 2021 12:03PM
Nishant
is on page 37 of 128
“Resistance — patience — firmness — duty: these are not negative nor even passive virtues; they are not the restraint of force.. The anarchist apparently seeks to create a political vacuum; but it is the fertile vacuum of Tao, where heavy masses fall of their own weight and the invisible seeds germinate. He speaks a word that heals as it violates.”
— May 13, 2021 08:43AM
Nishant
is on page 32 of 128
“at present it is exactly the aim of all the organs of publicity, entertainment, and education so to form the personality that a man performs by his subjective personal choice just what is objectively advantageous for the coercive corporation”
— May 12, 2021 10:52PM
Nishant
is on page 29 of 128
On Drawing the line:
“In the mixed society of coercion and nature, our characteristic act is Drawing the Line, beyond which we cannot co-operate... No particular drawn line will ever be defensible logically... Yet to each person it seems to make all the difference where he draws the line! This is because just these details are the symbolic key to his repressed powers — and... guilt for the acceptance of it.”
— May 12, 2021 10:46PM
“In the mixed society of coercion and nature, our characteristic act is Drawing the Line, beyond which we cannot co-operate... No particular drawn line will ever be defensible logically... Yet to each person it seems to make all the difference where he draws the line! This is because just these details are the symbolic key to his repressed powers — and... guilt for the acceptance of it.”
Nishant
is on page 28 of 128
On the seemingly conflicting ideals of autonomy and community: “It is not our social nature to go it alone. It does not follow that one must conform to Society. It is enough to find-and-make a band, two hundred, of the like-minded, to know that oneself is sane though the rest of the city is batty.”
— May 12, 2021 10:44PM
