“
I had no one to help me, but the T. S. Eliot helped me.
So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language – and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers – a language powerful enough to say how it is.
It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?)
“
Most insensible, corrupt, cheap, disrespectful young girls run after bad, rude, cocky, nonsensical boys, but a mature, educated, thoughtful, virtuos lady opts for a wise, well breed, experienced, humble, modest gentleman.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson
“
So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn't be read in school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers - a language powerful enough to to say how it is.
It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?)
“
We don't have any option. We are dependent on these mullahs to learn the Quran," he said. "But you just use him to learn the literal meaning of the words; don't follow his explanations and interpretation. Only learn what God says. His words are divine messages, which you are free and independent to interpret.
”
”
Malala Yousafzai (I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban)
“
Many people keep deploring the low level of formal education in the United states (as defined by, say, math grades). Yet these fail to realize that the new comes from here and gets imitated elsewhere. And it is not thanks to universities, which obviously claim a lot more credit than their accomplishments warrant. Like Britain in the Industrial Revolution, America's asset is, simply, risk taking and the use of optionality, this remarkable ability to engage in rational forms fo trial and error, with no comparative shame in failing again, starting again, and repeating failure.
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder)
“
Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbor into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide spectrum of options for choice and commitment. It is not an educated intimidation with good books, good stories, and good works, but the liberation of fearful hearts so that words can find roots and bear ample fruit….The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free….not a subtle invitation to adopt the life style of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own.
”
”
Henri J.M. Nouwen
“
Poor people have poor options. Chavez found the Army almost by accident, and had found it a true open of security and opportunity and fellowship and respect.
”
”
Tom Clancy (Clear and Present Danger (Jack Ryan, #5; Jack Ryan Universe, #6))
“
The options available to a creative person are ever limited by the choices offered by a philosopher.
”
”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier)
“
A strange mood has seized the almost-educated young. They're on the march, angry at times, but mostly needful, longing for authority's blessing, its validation of their chosen identities. The decline of the West in new guise perhaps. Or the exaltation and liberation of the self. A social-media site famously proposes seventy-one gender options – neutrois, two spirit, bigender…any colour you like, Mr Ford. Biology is not destiny after all, and there's cause for celebration. A shrimp is neither limiting nor stable. I declare my undeniable feeling for who I am. If I turn out to be white, I may identify as black. And vice versa. I may announce myself as disabled, or disabled in context. If my identity is that of a believer, I'm easily wounded, my flesh torn to bleeding by any questioning of my faith. Offended, I enter a state of grace. Should inconvenient opinions hover near me like fallen angels or evil djinn (a mile being too near), I'll be in need of the special campus safe room equipped with Play-Doh and looped footage of gambolling puppies. Ah, the intellectual life! I may need advance warning if upsetting books or ideas threaten my very being by coming too close, breathing on my face, my brain, like unwholesome drugs.
”
”
Ian McEwan (Nutshell)
“
Kindness is not an option, it is an absolute necessity of life.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
I wasn’t reading poetry because my aim was to work my way through English Literature in Prose A–Z.
But this was different.
I read [in, Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot]: This is one moment, / But know that another / Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy.
I started to cry.
(…)The unfamiliar and beautiful play made things bearable that day, and the things it made bearable were another failed family—the first one was not my fault, but all adopted children blame themselves. The second failure was definitely my fault.
I was confused about sex and sexuality, and upset about the straightforward practical problems of where to live, what to eat, and how to do my A levels.
I had no one to help me, but the T.S. Eliot helped me.
So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language—and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is.
It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?)
“
I am a college-educated American. In all my years of formal schooling, I never read Plato or Aristotle, Homer or Virgil. I knew nothing of Greek and Roman history and barely grasped the meaning of the Middle Ages. Dante was a stranger to me, and so was Shakespeare. The fifteen hundred years of Christianity from the end of the New Testament to the Reformation were a blank page, and I knew only the barest facts about Luther's revolution. I was ignorant of Descartes and Newton. My understanding of Western history began with the Enlightenment. Everything that came before it was lost behind a misty curtain of forgetting. Nobody did this on purpose. Nobody tried to deprive me of my civilizational patrimony. But nobody felt any obligation to present it to me and my generation in an orderly, coherent fashion. Ideas have consequences - and so does their lack.
”
”
Rod Dreher (The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation)
“
Events are transient, feelings are momentary, perception is optional and internalization is life long.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
Forgiveness is not an option; it is essential for life.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
Pain is inevitable in life but sufferings and miseries are optional.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
Education these days is making youths suffer like mental patients, but no one has anything to say about it because there is no other option to be given.
”
”
Meghan Blistinsky
“
Most of what our students need to know hasn’t been discovered or invented yet. “Learning how to learn” used to be an optional extra in education; today, it’s a survival skill.
”
”
Dylan Wiliam (Embedding Formative Assessment: Practical Techniques for K-12 Classrooms)
“
Peace is not an option, it is the only option.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
What happened with education in South Africa, with the mission schools and the Bantu schools, offers a neat comparison of the two groups of whites who oppressed us, the British and the Afrikaners. The difference between British racism and Afrikaner racism was that at least the British gave the natives something to aspire to. If they could learn to speak correct English and dress in proper clothes, if they could Anglicize and civilize themselves, one day they might be welcome in society. The Afrikaners never gave us that option. British racism said, “If the monkey can walk like a man and talk like a man, then perhaps he is a man.” Afrikaner racism said, “Why give a book to a monkey?
”
”
Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (One World Essentials))
“
I consider it completely irresponsible that public schools offer sex education but no systematic guidance to adolescent girls, who should be thinking about how they want to structure their future lives: do they want children, and if so, when should that be scheduled, with the advantages and disadvantages of each option laid out. Because of the stubborn biological burden of pregnancy and childbirth, these are issues that will always affect women more profoundly than men. Starting a family early has its price for an ambitions young woman, a career hiatus that may be difficult to overcome. On the other hand, the reward of being with one's children in their formative years, instead of farming out that fleeting and irreplaceable experience to day care centres or nannies, has an inherent emotional and perhaps spiritual value that has been lamentable ignored by second-wave feminism.
”
”
Camille Paglia (Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism)
“
Motherhood seems to be a no-win battle: however you decide to do (or not do) it, someone’s going to be criticizing you. You went to too great lengths trying to conceive. You didn’t go to great enough lengths. You had the baby too young. You should have kept the baby even though you were young. You shouldn’t have waited so long to try and have a baby. You’re a too involved mother. You’re not involved enough because you let your child play on the playground alone. It never ends. It strikes me that while all this judgment goes on, the options available to women become fewer and fewer. I’m not even (just) talking about the right to choose—across the U.S., women have less access to birth control, health care, reproductive education, and post-partum support. So we give women less information about their bodies and reproduction, less control over their bodies, and less support during and after pregnancy—and then we criticize them fiercely for whatever they end up doing. This
”
”
Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere)
“
Death is inevitable but living is very optional.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
Life is a daring adventure, so suffering should be optional.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
Pain is painful but an essential ingredient of life. Suffering is optional.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
Failure is not an option, winning or learning are the options.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
Love is not an option, it is the only option.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
Miseries are often an option and it depends on perception.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
Most of the world’s problems are caused by people who made education compulsory, but personal development optional. Because of them, we have many intelligent people who lack good characters.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts)
“
I have found that traditional school settings are hostile to children who live under constant stress and duress. I resent the idea that, just because it is “free,” public education is the first choice. Public education is one choice among many, but it is not the norm against which other schooling options are to be graded.
”
”
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield (The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert)
“
Wealth had made rigor optional in America. But everything had changed. In an automated, global economy, kids needed to be driven; then need to know how to adapt, since they would be doing it all their lives. They needed a culture of rigor.
”
”
Amanda Ripley (The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way)
“
But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible. It just depends what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it.
This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life)
“
Most of us, Ogu, live with a vague dissatisfaction, if we are lucky. Living as we do, upon us is imposed a particular rhythm - birth, education, a job, marriage, then birth again, but we all have minds don't we?
For most Indians of your age, just getting any job is enough. You were more fortunate for you had options before you.
These sound like paternal homilies, don't they, but you've always had surrogate parents, your aunts, and then in Delhi, your Pultukaku, and we've not really spent much time together.
”
”
Upamanyu Chatterjee (English, August: An Indian Story)
“
As a practical matter I’ve learned to seek the minimum amount of technology for myself that will create the maximum amount of choices for myself and others. The cybernetician Heinz von Foerster called this approach the Ethical Imperative, and he put it this way: “Always act to increase the number of choices.” The way we can use technologies to increase choices for others is by encouraging science, innovation, education, literacies, and pluralism. In my own experience this principle has never failed: In any game, increase your options.
”
”
Kevin Kelly (What Technology Wants)
“
[L]iberals insist that children should be given the right to remain part of their particular community, but on condition that they are given a choice. But for, say, Amish children to really have a free choice of which way of life to choose, either their parents’ life or that of the “English,” they would have to be properly informed on all the options, educated in them, and the only way to do what would be to extract them from their embeddedness in the Amish community, in other words, to effectively render them “English.” This also clearly demonstrates the limitations of the standard liberal attitude towards Muslim women wearing a veil: it is deemed acceptable if it is their free choice and not an option imposed on them by their husbands or family. However, the moment a woman wears a veil as the result of her free individual choice, the meaning of her act changes completely: it is no longer a sign of her direct substantial belongingness to the Muslim community, but an expression of her idiosyncratic individuality, of her spiritual quest and her protest against the vulgarity of the commodification of sexuality, or else a political gesture of protest against the West. A choice is always a meta-choice, a choice of the modality of choice itself: it is one thing to wear a veil because of one’s immediate immersion in a tradition; it is quite another to refuse to wear a veil; and yet another to wear one not out of a sense of belonging, but as an ethico-political choice. This is why, in our secular societies based on “choice,” people who maintain a substantial religious belonging are in a subordinate position: even if they are allowed to practice their beliefs, these beliefs are “tolerated” as their idiosyncratic personal choice or opinion; they moment they present them publicly as what they really are for them, they are accused of “fundamentalism.” What this means is that the “subject of free choice” (in the Western “tolerant” multicultural sense) can only emerge as the result of an extremely violent process of being torn away from one’s particular lifeworld, of being cut off from one’s roots.
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Living in the End Times)
“
There was something curiously aligned between the Trump family and MBS. Like the entire Saudi leadership, MBS had, practically speaking, no education. In the past, this had worked to limit the Saudi options—nobody was equipped to confidently explore new intellectual possibilities. As a consequence, everybody was wary of trying to get them to imagine change. But MBS and Trump were on pretty much equal footing. Knowing little made them oddly comfortable with each other.
”
”
Michael Wolff (Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House)
“
It strikes me that while all this judgment goes on, the options available to women become fewer and fewer. I’m not even (just) talking about the right to choose—across the U.S., women have less access to birth control, health care, reproductive education, and post-partum support. So we give women less information about their bodies and reproduction, less control over their bodies, and less support during and after pregnancy—and then we criticize them fiercely for whatever they end up doing.
”
”
Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere)
“
More you learn about yourself, more able you become to decide the better options for you, more aware you become of your inner infinite resources.
”
”
Deepak Burfiwala (Self-Ignorance Is Your Problem. Self-Awareness Is Your Solution.: Success Is Your Birthright! Life Is Yours and You Are the Pilot of It, Do Something about It.)
“
Genuine education equity will be achieved only when schools serving low-income children mirror in number, variety, and access the options that affluent parents have come to expect for their children.
”
”
Robert Pondiscio (How The Other Half Learns: Equality, Excellence, and the Battle Over School Choice)
“
but I suspect that for many people the main reason they cling to religion is not that it is consoling, but that they have been let down by our educational system and don’t realize that non-belief is even an option.
”
”
Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion: 10th Anniversary Edition)
“
In West Virginia, we've been extracting coal longer than anyone else. And after one hundred and fifty years of making other people rich, West Virginia is almost dead last among the states in per capita income, education rates and life expectancy. And it's not an anomaly. The areas with the richest fossil fuel resources, whether coal in West Virginia and Kentucky, or oil in Louisiana and Mississippi, are the areas with the lowest standards of living. In part, this is a necessity of the industry. The only way to convince someone to blow up their backyard or poison their water is to make sure they are so desperate that they have no other option.
”
”
Tim DeChristopher
“
When you have a high enough calling, it is much easier to commit yourself to doing whatever it takes to accomplish your life’s purpose. You have to decide if what you’re doing is worth your complete effort and full attention. If it is, don’t let anything stop you. The word “decide” has an interesting etymology. It means, literally, to cut off. When you truly decide, truly commit, you are cutting off all other options. Making a decision about your life’s purpose isn’t something to be done
”
”
Dave Burgess (Teach Like a PIRATE: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator)
“
Fortunately, our colleges and universities are fully cognizant of the problems I have been delineating and take concerted action to address them. Curricula are designed to give coherence to the educational experience and to challenge students to develop a strong degree of moral awareness. Professors, deeply involved with the enterprise of undergraduate instruction, are committed to their students' intellectual growth and insist on maintaining the highest standards of academic rigor. Career services keep themselves informed about the broad range of postgraduate options and make a point of steering students away from conventional choices. A policy of noncooperation with U.S. News has taken hold, depriving the magazine of the data requisite to calculate its rankings. Rather than squandering money on luxurious amenities and exorbitant administrative salaries, schools have rededicated themselves to their core missions of teaching and the liberal arts.
I'm kidding, of course.
”
”
William Deresiewicz (Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life)
“
In China, women who are single past the age of twenty-seven are stigmatized as sheng nu, or “leftover women.” They face severe pressure from their families to marry, stemming from the widespread belief that regardless of education and professional achievement, a woman is “absolutely nothing until she is married.” One thirty-six-year-old economics professor was rejected by fifteen men because she had an advanced degree; her father then forbade her younger sister from going to graduate school.
”
”
Sheryl Sandberg (Option B)
“
My father despises cats. He believes them to be Democrats. He considers them to be little mean hillary clintons covered all over with feminist legfur. Cats would have abortions, if given half a chance. Cats would have abortions for fun. Consequently our own soft sinner, a soulful snowshoe named Alice, will stay shut in the bedroom upstairs, padding back and forth on cashmere paws, campaigning for equal pay, educating me about my reproductive options, and generally plotting the downfall of all men.
”
”
Patricia Lockwood (Priestdaddy: A Memoir)
“
It’s impossible to attain much success in politics if you’re the sort of person who can’t abide disingenuousness. This isn’t to say politics is full of lies and liars; it has no more liars than other fields do. Actually one hears very few proper lies in politics. Using vague, slippery, or just meaningless language is not the same as lying: it’s not intended to deceive so much as to preserve options, buy time, distance oneself from others, or just to sound like you’re saying something instead of nothing.
”
”
Barton Swaim (The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics)
“
It is unfathomable that black parents would continue to put their children’s future at risk by pledging allegiance to abysmal public schools when the option to drastically improve their educational circumstances sits before them. It is even more unfathomable that liberals would ask them to. Is it not ironic that the same people who claim the American workforce is racist and that black Americans have a harder time securing jobs and moving up the corporate ladder would at the same time do all they can to prevent workplace preparedness by advocating against the best available paths for education? It is too often the case that those with the loudest voices against school choice are the very same Democrats who send their own kids to private schools. Their astounding hypocrisy is evidence of a more sinister intention, I believe. Perhaps Democrats simply understand that uneducated black children transform into uneducated adults, and uneducated adults are far more easily controlled by mass propaganda than those who think critically for themselves.
”
”
Candace Owens (Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation)
“
Once, during my Catholic days, I was complaining with a Catholic friend about how terrible the teaching was in parish life. A priest listening to us said that everything we griped about was true, but we didn't have to resign ourselves and our children to this fate.
'You could go online to Amazon.com tonight and have sent to you within a week a theological library that Aquinas would have envied,' he said. 'My parents raised me in the seventies, which was the beginning of the catechesis nightmare. They knew that if they were going to raise Catholic kids, they would have to do a lot of it themselves, and they did. So do you.
”
”
Rod Dreher (The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation)
“
rather than thinking about schooling that offers only two options, university or work, there ought to be an education system that ends just with qualifications in the humanities or sciences, because whoever ends up becoming, for example, a sanitation worker will need the intellectual training necessary to plan and program his or her own reemployment. This is not an abstract democratic and egalitarian ideal. It’s the same logic as that of working in a computerized society, which requires the same education for all and is modeled on the highest, not the lowest, standard. Otherwise, innovation will always and only produce unemployment.
”
”
Umberto Eco (Chronicles of a Liquid Society)
“
As you renew your mental dimension, you reinforce your personal management (Habit 3). As you plan, you force your mind to recognize high leverage Quadrant II activities, priority goals, and activities to maximize the use of your time and energy, and you organize and execute your activities around your priorities. As you become involved in continuing education, you increase your knowledge base and you increase your options. Your economic security does not lie in your job; it lies in your own power to produce—to think, to learn, to create, to adapt. That’s true financial independence. It’s not having wealth; it’s having the power to produce wealth. It’s intrinsic.
”
”
Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
“
You've told a good story in a skillful manner. I like it that you haven't moralized about your heroine's mistakes. You've made it difficult for the reader not to sympathize with her."
"I sympathize with her," Amanda said frankly. "I've always thought it would be the worst kind of horror to be trapped in a loveless marriage. So many women are forced to marry because of pure economics. If more women were able to support themselves, there would be fewer reluctant brides and unhappy wives."
"Why, Miss Briars," he said softly. "How unconventional of you."
She countered his amusement with a perplexed frown. "It's only sensible, really."
He realized suddenly that this was the key to understanding her. Amanda was so doggedly practical that she was willing to discard the hypocrisies and stale social attitudes that most people accepted without thinking. Why, indeed, should a woman marry just because it was the expected thing to do, if she were able to choose otherwise?
"Perhaps most women think it is easier to marry than support themselves," he said, deliberately provoking her.
"Easier?" she snorted. "I've never seen a shred of evidence that spending the rest of one's days in domestic drudgery is any easier than working at some trade. What women need is more education, more choices, and then they will be able to consider options for themselves other than marriage.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Suddenly You)
“
It’s a great scandal of the CEOs, who are simply bandits. They go into a company that had a rich base, grab everything they can for themselves, stock options, huge salaries, fire as many people as possible. If we ever have an oldfashioned revolution in the United States, it will be made by well-educated blue-collar workers who have lost their jobs.
”
”
Paul Jay (Gore Vidal: History of The National Security State)
“
Progress is like wheels that never stop; they have to keep turning in order to remain relevant to a car and all of its mechanical parts. Stopping is not an option in real time but it is to those that envy progress and upward mobility. Progress never ends because it is infinite but it rebuilds and readjust (s) to take small steps then massive steps if it is hindered.
”
”
Terrance Robinson- Artist Educator Scholar Entrepreneur
“
Progress is like wheels that never stop; they have to keep turning in order to remain relevant to a car and all of its mechanical parts. Stopping is not an option in real time but it is to those that envy progress and upward mobility. Progress never ends because it is infinite but it rebuilds and readjust (s) to take increment steps then massive steps if it is hindered.
- Terrance Robinson
”
”
Terrance Robinson- Artist Educator Scholar Entrepreneur
“
When education is overwhelmed by hypermedia, travel facile or ruinous, and work a blurred mixture of more dependence and less meaning, it’s harder than ever to use those experiences to grow. But growing up, I have argued, has been dogged by dilemma ever since it was a real option. As Enlightenment philosophers knew, it’s a process that is as socially determined as it is profoundly individual.
”
”
Susan Neiman (Why Grow Up?: Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age)
“
Watch—What’s happening? What’s working and what’s not? Ideate—What could you improve? What are your options? Guess—Based on what you’ve learned so far, which of your ideas do you think will make the biggest impact? Which?—Decide which change to make. Act—Actually make the change. Measure—What happened? Was the change positive or negative? Should you keep the change, or go back to how things were before this iteration?
”
”
Josh Kaufman (The Personal MBA: A World-Class Business Education in a Single Volume)
“
when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language – and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers – a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?)
“
For a while I considered dropping out of Barnard to help. It felt unbearably selfish, just downright wrong, to be indulging myself with an education in the liberal arts at a fancy private college while Mom and Dad were on the streets. But Lori convinced me that dropping out was a lamebrained idea. It wouldn’t do any good, she said, and besides, dropping out would break Dad’s heart. He was immensely proud that he had a daughter in college, and an Ivy League college at that. Every time he met someone new, he managed to work it into the first few minutes of conversation. Mom and Dad, Brian pointed out, had options. They could move back to West Virginia or Phoenix. Mom could work. And she was not destitute. She had her collection of antique Indian jewelry, which she kept in a self-storage locker. There was the two-carat diamond ring that Brian and I had found under the rotten lumber back in Welch; she wore it even when sleeping on the street. She still owned property in Phoenix. And she had the land in Texas, the source of her oil-lease royalties.
”
”
Jeannette Walls (The Glass Castle)
“
As a practical matter I’ve learned to seek the minimum amount of technology for myself that will create the maximum amount of choices for myself and others. The cybernetician Heinz von Foerster called this approach the Ethical Imperative, and he put it this way: “Always act to increase the number of choices.” The way we can use technologies to increase choices for others is by encouraging science, innovation, education, literacies, and pluralism. In my own experience this principle has never failed: In any game, increase your options.
”
”
Kevin Kelly (What Technology Wants)
“
This is what I think of America -- nothing. This is what I think of American Jews -- nothing. Your democracy, your inclusivity, your exceptionalism -- nothing. Your chances for survival -- none at all. You, Ruben Blum, are out of history; you're over and finished; in only a generation or two the memory of who your people were will be dead, and America won't give your unrecognizable descendants anything real with which to replace the sense of peoplehood it took from them; the boredom of your wife--who's tearing her program up into little white paper pills she'd like to swallow like Percodan--isn't merely boredom with you or her work or with the insufficiency of options for educated women in this country; it's more like a sense of having not lived fully in a consequential time; and the craziness of your daughter isn't just the craziness of an adolescent abducted from the city to the country and put under too much pressure to achieve and succeed; it's more like a raging resentment that nothing she can find to do in her life holds any meaning for her and every challenge that's been thrust at her--from what college to choose to what career to have--is small, compared to the challenges that my boys, for example--whom she's been condemned to babysit--will one day have to deal with, such as how to make a new people in a new land forge a living history. Your life here is rich in possessions but poor in spirit, petty and forgettable, with your frigidaires and color TVs, in front of which you can munch your instant supper, laugh at a joke, and choke, realizing that you have traded your birthright away for a bowl of plastic lentils...
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Joshua Cohen (The Netanyahus)
“
Many researchers have sought the secret of successful education by identifying the most successful schools in the hope of discovering what distinguishes them from others. One of the conclusions of this research is that the most successful schools, on average, are small. In a survey of 1,662 schools in Pennsylvania, for instance, 6 of the top 50 were small, which is an overrepresentation by a factor of 4. These data encouraged the Gates Foundation to make a substantial investment in the creation of small schools, sometimes by splitting large schools into smaller units. At least half a dozen other prominent institutions, such as the Annenberg Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trust, joined the effort, as did the U.S. Department of Education’s Smaller Learning Communities Program. This probably makes intuitive sense to you. It is easy to construct a causal story that explains how small schools are able to provide superior education and thus produce high-achieving scholars by giving them more personal attention and encouragement than they could get in larger schools. Unfortunately, the causal analysis is pointless because the facts are wrong. If the statisticians who reported to the Gates Foundation had asked about the characteristics of the worst schools, they would have found that bad schools also tend to be smaller than average. The truth is that small schools are not better on average; they are simply more variable. If anything, say Wainer and Zwerling, large schools tend to produce better results, especially in higher grades where a variety of curricular options is valuable. Thanks to recent advances in cognitive psychology,
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Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow)
“
For those of you that are unaware, failure is an option. If you really want to be that school district that removes failure from the equation,
then you as a district are failing your students. Students need to understand that failure is part of life—it happens. And whether you like it or not, they will have a much more difficult time when they get out of school succeeding
because you as a school have never let them
experience failure, nor have you given them the opportunity to know what it means to
learn from that which they did not the first
time understand.
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”
Fröderick Frankensteen (No Diploma Left Behind)
“
My first black president seems to think that he could raise his daughters to believe in systemic racism without legitimizing the idea of systemic reparations. He thinks that he can be his brother’s keeper without changing the policies, laws, and investments that keep his brothers in bad jobs, in poor neighborhoods, with bad educational options, and at the bottom of the social hierarchy. My first black president seems to think he can have black cool without black burden. For all his intimacies with his white mother and white grandparents, my first black president doesn’t appear to know his whites.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom (Thick: And Other Essays)
“
Black America faced two options. We could seize on the great freedom we had just won in the civil rights victories and advance through education, skill development, and entrepreneurialism combined with an unbending assault on any continuing discrimination; or we could go after these things indirectly by pressuring the society that had wronged us into taking the lion’s share of responsibility in resurrecting us. The new black militancy that exploded everywhere in the late sixties—and that came to define the strategy for black advancement for the next four decades—grew out of black America’s complete embrace of the latter option.
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Shelby Steele (White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era)
“
When a place becomes unlivable, people move,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has observed. “This is the case for environmental disasters such as droughts, or for conflicts, such as in Syria. Yet this last resort is denied to the people in Gaza. They cannot move beyond their 365 square kilometers territory. They cannot escape, neither the devastating poverty nor the fear of another conflict. Its highly educated youth . . . do not have the option to travel, to seek education outside Gaza, or to find work, anywhere else beyond the perimeter fence and the two tightly-controlled border-checkpoints in the north and south of the Gaza Strip.
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Norman G. Finkelstein (Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom)
“
Christian disciples are sent men and women—sent out in the same work of world evangelism to which the Lord was sent, and for which he gave his life. Evangelism is not an optional accessory to our life. It is the heartbeat of all that we are called to be and do. It is the commission of the church that gives meaning to all else that is undertaken in the name of Christ. With this purpose clearly in focus, everything that is done and said has glorious fulfillment of God’s redemptive purpose—educational institutions, social programs, hospitals, church meetings of any kind—everything done in the name of Christ has its justification in fulfilling this mission.
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Robert E. Coleman (The Master Plan of Evangelism)
“
Maybe you have even seen so-called “losers” who did not have much going for them according to the standards of society — no education, no career, and no future worth speaking of — yet somehow were successful with women. This sight is a common thorn in the eye of males who are much more successful in their careers than they are with women, and it is a scenario that parents with attractive daughters worry about, as they know it is not unlikely for their girl to end up with such a “failure” for a boyfriend. So why is this? This is because a male who has options among several females yet chooses one particular female to be with is paying her a great compliment, in fact, the greatest compliment.
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W. Anton (The Manual: What Women Want and How to Give It to Them)
“
Our quest for heroism is awkward. Not the obvious heroism that earns medals and applause but the heroism of daily life. Go to Princeton and you’re an educational hero; run a marathon and you’re an athletic hero; make loads of money and you’re a financial hero--the alpha hero of our culture. Each occupation and role in life has its own exacting rituals for advancement and reward, from the employee of the month parking space to stock options. The point is not the Princeton degree or the marathon medallion or the money or the parking space, it’s what these things say about us, that we are special and unique; that momentarily at least, we have risen head and shoulders above the clamoring masses to be giddily succored by premonitions of divinity.
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Jonathan Hull (Losing Julia)
“
Imaginary Lives Imaginary Lives is a thought experiment I have adapted from two important career-change thinkers, Julia Cameron and John Williams, which aims to take your ideas a stage closer towards specific job options.55 It’s simple but potentially powerful. • Imagine five parallel universes, in each of which you could have a whole year off to pursue absolutely any career you desired. Now think of five different jobs you might want to try out in each of these universes. Be bold in your thinking, have fun with your ideas and your multiple selves. Your five choices might be food photographer, member of parliament, tai chi instructor, social entrepreneur running a youth education project, and wide-achieving Renaissance generalist. One person I know who did this activity – a documentary film maker who was having doubts about her career – listed massage therapist, sculptor, cellist, screen-play writer, and owner of her own bar on a tiny, old-fashioned Canarian island. Now come back down to earth and look hard at your five choices. Write down what it is about them that attracts you. Then look at them again, and think about this question: • How does each career measure up against the two motivations in the previous activity that you chose to prioritize in the future? If you decided, for instance, that you want a combination of making a difference and high status, check whether your five imaginary careers might provide them. The point is to help you think more deeply about exactly what you are looking for in a career, the kind of experiences that you truly desire.
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Roman Krznaric (How to Find Fulfilling Work (The School of Life))
“
Looking beneath the history of one’s country is like learning that alcoholism or depression runs in one’s family or that suicide has occurred more often than might be usual or, with the advances in medical genetics, discovering that one has inherited the markers of a BRCA mutation for breast cancer. You don’t ball up in a corner with guilt or shame at these discoveries. You don’t, if you are wise, forbid any mention of them. In fact, you do the opposite. You educate yourself. You talk to people who have been through it and to specialists who have researched it. You learn the consequences and obstacles, the options and treatment. You may pray over it and meditate over it. Then you take precautions to protect yourself and succeeding generations and work to ensure that these things, whatever they are, don’t happen again.
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Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents)
“
You don’t mention what you’d like to study, but I assure you there are many ways to fund a graduate education. I know a whole lot of people who did not go broke getting a graduate degree. There is funding for tuition remission at many schools, as well as grants, paid research, and teaching assistantships, and—yes—the offer of more student loans. Perhaps more importantly in your case, there are numerous ways to either cancel portions of your student loan debt or defer payment. Financial difficulty, unemployment, attending school at least half-time (i.e., graduate school!), working in certain professions, and serving in the Peace Corps or other community service jobs are some ways that you would be eligible for debt deferment or cancellation. I encourage you to investigate your options so you can make a plan that brings you peace of mind. There are many websites that will elucidate what I have summarized above.
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Cheryl Strayed (Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Someone Who's Been There)
“
Eric Berne once described it . . . A little boy sees and hears birds with delight. Then the “good father” comes along and feels he should “share” the experience and help his son “develop.” He says: “That’s a jay, and this is a sparrow.” The moment the little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing. He has to see and hear them the way the father wants him to. Father has good reasons on his side, since few people can go through life listening to the birds sing, and the sooner the boy starts his “education” the better. Maybe he will be an ornithologist when he grows up. A few people, however, can still see and hear in the old way. But most of the members of the human race have lost the capacity to be painters, poets, or musicians, and are not left the option of seeing and hearing directly even if they can afford to; they must get it secondhand.5
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Stephen Harrod Buhner (Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming of Earth)
“
I can hardly believe that our nation’s policy is to seek peace by going to war. It seems that President Donald J. Trump has done everything in his power to divert our attention away from the fact that the FBI is investigating his association with Russia during his campaign for office. For several weeks now he has been sabre rattling and taking an extremely controversial stance, first with Syria and Afghanistan and now with North Korea. The rhetoric has been the same, accusing others for our failed policy and threatening to take autonomous military action to attain peace in our time.
This gunboat diplomacy is wrong. There is no doubt that Secretaries Kelly, Mattis, and other retired military personnel in the Trump Administration are personally tough. However, most people who have served in the military are not eager to send our young men and women to fight, if it is not necessary. Despite what may have been said to the contrary, our military leaders, active or retired, are most often the ones most respectful of international law. Although the military is the tip of the spear for our country, and the forces of civilization, it should not be the first tool to be used. Bloodshed should only be considered as a last resort and definitely never used as the first option. As the leader of the free world, we should stand our ground but be prepared to seek peace through restraint. This is not the time to exercise false pride!
Unfortunately the Trump administration informed four top State Department management officials that their services were no longer needed as part of an effort to "clean house." Patrick Kennedy, served for nine years as the “Undersecretary for Management,” “Assistant Secretaries for Administration and Consular Affairs” Joyce Anne Barr and Michele Bond, as well as “Ambassador” Gentry Smith, director of the Office for Foreign Missions. Most of the United States Ambassadors to foreign countries have also been dismissed, including the ones to South Korea and Japan. This leaves the United States without the means of exercising diplomacy rapidly, when needed. These positions are political appointments, and require the President’s nomination and the Senate’s confirmation. This has not happened! Moreover, diplomatically our country is severely handicapped at a time when tensions are as hot as any time since the Cold War.
Without following expert advice or consent and the necessary input from the Unites States Congress, the decisions are all being made by a man who claims to know more than the generals do, yet he has only the military experience of a cadet at “New York Military Academy.” A private school he attended as a high school student, from 1959 to 1964. At that time, he received educational and medical deferments from the Vietnam War draft. Trump said that the school provided him with “more training than a lot of the guys that go into the military.” His counterpart the unhinged Kim Jong-un has played with what he considers his country’s military toys, since April 11th of 2012. To think that these are the two world leaders, protecting the planet from a nuclear holocaust….
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Hank Bracker
“
The California Board of Education provides, through its virtual libraries, a book intended for kindergarten teachers to read to their students: Who Are You? The Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity by Brook Pessin-Whedbee.19 The author begins with a familiar origin story: “Babies can’t talk, so grown-ups make a guess by looking at their bodies. This is the sex assigned to you at birth, male or female.”20 This author runs the gamut of typical kindergarten gender identity instruction. Who Are You? offers kids a smorgasbord of gender options. (“These are just a few words people use: trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gender fluid, transgender, gender neutral, agender, neutrois, bigender, third gender, two-spirit….”) The way baby boomers once learned to rattle off state capitals, elementary school kids are now taught today’s gender taxonomy often enough to have committed it to memory. And while gender ideologues insist they are merely presenting an objective ontology, it is hard to miss that they seem to hope kids will pick a fun, “gender-creative”21 option for themselves.
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”
Abigail Shrier (Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters)
“
Fake it till you become it.
My first Argentine tango was with Lil’ Kim, and again, I was completely learning it as I went along. Now it’s become one of my favorite dances to do. Whenever people say to me, “You’re such a great choreographer,” or I look at my Emmy learning it in my apartment, I remind myself that I came into DWTS with no experience, no education in many of these dances, and certainly no clue how to teach anything to anybody. I simply committed to learning them and then taught them to my partners. I drew upon how I had been taught and what I thought my partners would respond to. I felt my way along, just as they did, till I became the teacher I wanted to be.
I threw myself into the effort without hesitation because I had no choice. There were only two options: I could go out there and throw my hands up and say, “Just kidding! I’m a phony,” or get it done. I couldn’t let myself or my partners down.
This was the stage I was given, and I always want to be the best at whatever I’m doing. I never wanted my partners to feel they couldn’t rely on me. I had to go in there and make it happen. With that mentality, I found a way.
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”
Derek Hough (Taking the Lead: Lessons from a Life in Motion)
“
Experience. Travel the path less taken. By seeing more of the world, we begin to see both how differently people live their lives as well as the underlying rhythms of life. We realize that many of these differences run only so deep. Learn something new every day. This does not mean you have to cram it into your head, remembering everything you encounter, but sit with the idea for a few minutes and consider your own thoughts on it. Your thoughts, not what you are supposed to think. By exposing yourself to new things, you broaden your understanding of what exists out there and how people think, and this in turn makes you aware of the sheer number of possibilities. The power of education is to open up the world to you, and allow you to realize that there are equally an infinite number of ways you might open up to the world. By recognizing that there are so many possibilities, you have the option of confronting situations in more productive, positive ways. Go towards your fears. This is an excellent mantra if you want to continue to challenge yourself. If something scares you, it can also be interpreted as something you have left to confront and conquer.
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”
Charlotte Maloney (Emotional Maturity: Discover How to Control Your Emotions and Be More Mature (The Secrets of Emotional Maturity))
“
A strange mood has seized the almost-educated young. They’re on the march, angry at times, but mostly needful, longing for authority’s blessing, its validation of their chosen identities. The decline of the West in new guise perhaps. Or the exaltation and liberation of the self. A social-media site famously proposes seventy-one gender options—neutrois, two spirit, bigender…any colour you like, Mr. Ford. Biology is not destiny after all, and there’s cause for celebration. A shrimp is neither limiting nor stable. I declare my undeniable feeling for who I am. If I turn out to be white, I may identify as black. And vice versa. I may announce myself as disabled, or disabled in context. If my identity is that of a believer, I’m easily wounded, my flesh torn to bleeding by any questioning of my faith. Offended, I enter a state of grace. Should inconvenient opinions hover near me like fallen angels or evil djinn (a mile being too near), I’ll be in need of the special campus safe room equipped with Play-Doh and looped footage of gambolling puppies. Ah, the intellectual life! I may need advance warning if upsetting books or ideas threaten my very being by coming too close, breathing on my face, my brain, like unwholesome dogs.
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Ian McEwan (Nutshell)
“
the world needs the US administration to be a leader for women’s rights, not an opponent of them. The administration’s new policies are not trying to help women meet their needs. There isn’t any reliable research that says women benefit when they have children they don’t feel ready to raise. The evidence says the opposite. When women can decide whether and when to have children, it saves lives, promotes health, expands education, and creates prosperity—no matter what country in the world you’re talking about. The US is doing the opposite of what the Philippines and the UK did. It is using policy to shrink the conversation, suppress voices, and allow the powerful to impose their will on the poor. Most of the work I do lifts me up, some of it breaks my heart, but this just makes me angry. These policies pick on poor women. Mothers struggling in poverty need the time, money, and energy to take care of each child. They need to be able to delay their pregnancies, time and space their births, and earn an income as they raise their children. Each one of these steps is advanced by contraceptives, and each one is jeopardized by these policies. Women who are well off won’t be harmed, and women with a stable income have options. But poor women are trapped. They will suffer the most from these changes and can do the least to stop them.
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Melinda French Gates (The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World)
“
When we go to the doctor, he or she will not begin to treat us without taking our history—and not just our history but that of our parents and grandparents before us. The doctor will not see us until we have filled out many pages on a clipboard that is handed to us upon arrival. The doctor will not hazard a diagnosis until he or she knows the history going back generations. As we fill out the pages of our medical past and our current complaints, what our bodies have been exposed to and what they have survived, it does us no good to pretend that certain ailments have not beset us, to deny the full truths of what brought us to this moment. Few problems have ever been solved by ignoring them. Looking beneath the history of one’s country is like learning that alcoholism or depression runs in one’s family or that suicide has occurred more often than might be usual or, with the advances in medical genetics, discovering that one has inherited the markers of a BRCA mutation for breast cancer. You don’t ball up in a corner with guilt or shame at these discoveries. You don’t, if you are wise, forbid any mention of them. In fact, you do the opposite. You educate yourself. You talk to people who have been through it and to specialists who have researched it. You learn the consequences and obstacles, the options and treatment. You may pray over it and meditate over it. Then you take precautions to protect yourself and succeeding generations and work to ensure that these things, whatever they are, don’t happen again.
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Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents)
“
No one acts in a void. We all take cues from cultural norms, shaped by the law. For the law affects our ideas of what is reasonable and appropriate. It does so by what it prohibits--you might think less of drinking if it were banned, or more of marijuana use if it were allowed--but also by what it approves. . . .
Revisionists agree that it matters what California or the United States calls a marriage, because this affects how Californians or Americans come to think of marriage.
Prominent Oxford philosopher Joseph Raz, no friend of the conjugal view, agrees: "[O]ne thing can be said with certainty [about recent changes in marriage law]. They will not be confined to adding new options to the familiar heterosexual monogamous family. They will change the character of that family. If these changes take root in our culture then the familiar marriage relations will disappear. They will not disappear suddenly. Rather they will be transformed into a somewhat different social form, which responds to the fact that it is one of several forms of bonding, and that bonding itself is much more easily and commonly dissoluble. All these factors are already working their way into the constitutive conventions which determine what is appropriate and expected within a conventional marriage and transforming its significance."
Redefining civil marriage would change its meaning for everyone. Legally wedded opposite-sex unions would increasingly be defined by what they had in common with same-sex relationships.
This wouldn't just shift opinion polls and tax burdens. Marriage, the human good, would be harder to achieve. For you can realize marriage only by choosing it, for which you need at least a rough, intuitive idea of what it really is. By warping people's view of marriage, revisionist policy would make them less able to realize this basic way of thriving--much as a man confused about what friendship requires will have trouble being a friend. . . .
Redefining marriage will also harm the material interests of couples and children. As more people absorb the new law's lesson that marriage is fundamentally about emotions, marriages will increasingly take on emotion's tyrannical inconstancy. Because there is no reason that emotional unions--any more than the emotions that define them, or friendships generally--should be permanent or limited to two, these norms of marriage would make less sense. People would thus feel less bound to live by them whenever they simply preferred to live otherwise. . . .
As we document below, even leading revisionists now argue that if sexual complementarity is optional, so are permanence and exclusivity. This is not because the slope from same-sex unions to expressly temporary and polyamorous ones is slippery, but because most revisionist arguments level the ground between them: If marriage is primarily about emotional union, why privilege two-person unions, or permanently committed ones? What is it about emotional union, valuable as it can be, that requires these limits?
As these norms weaken, so will the emotional and material security that marriage gives spouses. Because children fare best on most indicators of health and well-being when reared by their wedded biological parents, the same erosion of marital norms would adversely affect children's health, education, and general formation. The poorest and most vulnerable among us would likely be hit the hardest. And the state would balloon: to adjudicate breakup and custody issues, to meet the needs of spouses and children affected by divorce, and to contain and feebly correct the challenges these children face.
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Sherif Girgis
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It is perhaps easier for an English writer than it is for an Italian to see through that nonsense, and to perceive what it is designed to conceal: the deep structural similarity between communism and fascism, both as theory and as practice, and their common antagonism to parliamentary and constitutional forms of government. Even if we accept the – highly fortuitous – identification of National Socialism and Italian Fascism, to speak of either as the true political opposite of communism is to betray the most superficial understanding of modern history. In truth there is an opposite of all the ‘isms’, and that is negotiated politics, without an ‘ism’ and without a goal other than the peaceful coexistence of rivals. Communism, like fascism, involved the attempt to create a mass popular movement and a state bound together under the rule of a single party, in which there will be total cohesion around a common goal. It involved the elimination of opposition, by whatever means, and the replacement of ordered dispute between parties by clandestine ‘discussion’ within the single ruling elite. It involved taking control – ‘in the name of the people’ – of the means of communication and education, and instilling a principle of command throughout the economy. Both movements regarded law as optional and constitutional constraints as irrelevant – for both were essentially revolutionary, led from above by an ‘iron discipline’. Both aimed to achieve a new kind of social order, unmediated by institutions, displaying an immediate and fraternal cohesiveness. And in pursuit of this ideal association – called a fascio by nineteenth-century Italian socialists – each movement created a form of military government, involving the total mobilization of the entire populace,3 which could no longer do even the most peaceful-seeming things except in a spirit of war, and with an officer in charge. This mobilization was put on comic display, in the great parades and festivals that the two ideologies created for their own glorification.
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Roger Scruton (Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left)
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Learn how to critique. The value of exercises is very much a product of the quality of the critique, because it is in the critique that lessons can be drawn for all to see. Today, many critiques are poor quality. Often, they are not a critique at all, but just a narrative of who shot whom. At other times, the critique is stifled by an etiquette that demands no one be criticized and nothing negative be said. Too often, critiques can be summarized as “The comm was fouled up but we all did great.” There are a number of things you can do locally to improve the quality of critiques: First, the commanding officer can set a ground rule that demands frankness in critiquing. A good way to encourage this is for the CO to give a trenchant self-critique of his own actions and encourage others to do the same. Beginning a critique with the most junior officers and ending up with the most senior can also help encourage frankness. Second, a critique should be defined as something that looks beyond what happened to why it happened as it did. It may be helpful to look for instances where key decisions were made and ask the man who made them such questions as, “What options did you have here? What other options did you have that you failed to see? How quickly were you able to see, decide and act? If you were too slow, why? Why did you do what you did? Was your reasoning process sound, and if not, why not?” Third, the unit commander can attempt to identify individuals who are good critiquers and have them lead the critique. Not everyone can do it well; it takes a certain natural ability. Finally, the unit can hold a class on critiquing and from it develop some critique SOPs. These can help exercise participants look for key points during the exercise, points that can later serve to frame the critique. These actions are not substitutes for an overall reform of Marine Corps training. But they are concrete ways you can improve your own training. And just as individual self-education will be important after the schools are reformed, so these actions will help you train even after overall training is improved.
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William S. Lind (Maneuver Warfare Handbook)
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The story of Cassius Clay’s lost bicycle would later be told as an indication of the boxer’s determination and the wonders of accidental encounters, but it carries broader meaning, too. If Cassius Clay had been a white boy, the theft of his bicycle and an introduction to Joe Martin might have led as easily to an interest in a career in law enforcement as boxing. But Cassius, who had already developed a keen understanding of America’s racial striation, knew that law enforcement wasn’t a promising option. This subject—what white America allowed and expected of black people—would intrigue him all his life. “At twelve years old I wanted to be a big celebrity,” he said years later. “I wanted to be world famous.” The interviewer pushed him: Why did he want to be famous? Upon reflection he answered from a more adult perspective: “So that I could rebel and be different from all the rest of them and show everyone behind me that you don’t have to Uncle Tom, you don’t have to kiss you-know-what to make it . . . I wanted to be free. I wanted to say what I wanna say . . . Go where I wanna go. Do what I wanna do.” For young Cassius, what mattered was that boxing was permitted, even encouraged, and that it gave him more or less equal status to the white boys who trained with him. Every day, on his way to the gym, Cassius passed a Cadillac dealership. Boxing wasn’t the only way for him to acquire one of those big, beautiful cars in the showroom window, but it might have seemed that way at the time. Boxing suggested a path to prosperity that did not require reading and writing. It came with the authorization of a white man in Joe Martin. It offered respect, visibility, power, and money. Boxing transcended race in ways that were highly unusual in the 1950s, when black Americans had limited control of their economic and political lives. Boxing more than most other sports allowed black athletes to compete on level ground with white athletes, to openly display their strength and even superiority, and to earn money on a relatively equal scale. As James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time, many black people of Clay’s generation believed that getting an education and saving money would never be enough to earn respect. “One needed a handle, a lever, a means of inspiring fear,” Baldwin wrote. “It was absolutely clear the police would whip you and take you in as long as they could get away with it, and that everyone else—housewives, taxi
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Jonathan Eig (Ali: A Life)
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Call Girls in Delhi Dwarka Mor
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Simply reading is not studying. Do not study because you have no options other than to study. Do not study because you want to score marks. Study because it is the power of knowledge, and it is the passport to your future.
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Venu CV (Master Your Skills To Succeed)
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How can we find God? For many North Americans, it seems that the question is merely rhetorical. How do we answer for the extremely advantageous and privileged life we lead as compared to the vast majority of peoples on this earth? What have we done, or more importantly what are we expected to do, in order to deserve a life so full of comforts (water, food, shelter, telephones, entertainment, clothing, gadgets, education, participatory political systems, alternatives and options abounding)? If we are somehow a favored people for the moment, aren’t we called into the world community to give back some of the wealth and surplus of our good fortune? I just know that for myself when I reach out to another, there is nothing in the world that brings me such contentment and satisfaction. This is when God is closest to me or me to God-when I am in a relationship with others, the children of God.
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Betty Bauman
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Many individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing tend to identify with the Deaf community. They contend that they should be viewed not as deficient or pathological, but as members of a different culture with its own language, traditions, values, and history. For these individuals, their deafness provides a sense of pride and helps shape their self-identity (Owens & Farinella, 2019). The Deaf culture does not embrace the term hearing impaired. Its adherents view spoken English as an optional second language with ASL as the language of choice.
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Richard M. Gargiulo (Special Education in Contemporary Society: An Introduction to Exceptionality)
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China might be a quite convincing story, through the works of a genius observer, Joseph Needham, who debunked quite a few Western beliefs and figured out the powers of Chinese science. As China became a top-down mandarinate (that is, a state managed by Soviet-Harvard centralized scribes, as Egypt had been before), the players somehow lost the zest for bricolage, the hunger for trial and error. Needham’s biographer Simon Winchester cites the sinologist Mark Elvin’s description of the problem, as the Chinese did not have, or, rather, no longer had, what he called the “European mania for tinkering and improving.” They had all the means to develop a spinning machine, but “nobody tried”—another example of knowledge hampering optionality. They probably needed someone like Steve Jobs—blessed with an absence of college education and the right aggressiveness of temperament—to take the elements to their natural conclusion.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder (Incerto, #4))
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Unfortunately, one of the things that is lacking in our society is a good financial education. Most people barely understand what the stock market is and how it operates, and options are a level above even that.
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William Rogers (Options Trading Crash Course: The Beginner’s Guide to Make Money with Options Trading: Best Strategies for Make a Living from Passive Income and Quick Start to Your Financial Freedom)
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district court, Kirstein v. University of Virginia,20 may well mark the turning point in the long effort to place equal opportunity for women under the aegis of the Federal Constitution.21 The court held inconsonant with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause the exclusion of women from the University of Virginia’s undergraduate school at Charlottesville; it approved a plan which, after a two-year transition period, requires the admission of women on precisely the same basis as men. Although sixteen years have elapsed since Brown v. Board of Education,22 Kirstein v. University of Virginia is the first decision to declare unconstitutional exclusion of women from educational opportunities afforded to men by a state institution.23 Significantly, “private” institutions of higher learning that might escape a constitutional prod confined to “state action” are beginning to volunteer similar reforms. For example, Cornell University’s College of Arts and Sciences announced during the 1969–70 academic year that it would admit women on the same basis as men and would offer students of both sexes the same options with respect to housing accommodations
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg (My Own Words)
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If you have the option of voting with your money, make more educated decisions about the products you do need to buy. Buy
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Christiana Figueres (The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis)
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In recent years, Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) devices have emerged as a game-changer in diabetes management, offering patients a real-time view of their glucose levels and revolutionizing the way they monitor their condition. Among the pioneers in providing these life-changing devices, Med Supply US stands out as a reliable source, offering CGMs from various renowned brands like Abbott, Dexcom, and more. This article explores the significance of CGM devices and highlights the contribution of Med Supply US in making them accessible to those in need.
Understanding CGM Devices:
For individuals living with diabetes, maintaining optimal blood glucose levels is crucial to prevent serious health complications. Traditionally, this involved frequent finger-prick tests, which could be inconvenient and sometimes inaccurate. CGM devices, however, have transformed this process by providing continuous and real-time glucose level readings. These devices consist of a small sensor inserted under the skin that measures glucose levels in the interstitial fluid. The data collected is then transmitted to a receiver or a smartphone app, allowing users to track their glucose levels throughout the day and night.
Benefits of CGM Devices:
The introduction of CGM devices has brought about a paradigm shift in diabetes management due to their numerous benefits:
Real-time Monitoring: CGM devices offer a real-time insight into glucose trends, enabling users to make informed decisions about their diet, exercise, and insulin dosages. This real-time feedback empowers individuals to take timely action to maintain their glucose levels within a healthy range.
Reduced Hypoglycemia and Hyperglycemia: By providing alerts for both low and high glucose levels, CGMs help users avoid dangerous hypoglycemic episodes and hyperglycemic spikes. This is particularly beneficial during sleep when such episodes might otherwise go unnoticed.
Data-Driven Insights: CGM devices generate a wealth of data, including glucose trends, patterns, and even predictive alerts for potential issues. This information can be shared with healthcare providers to tailor treatment plans for optimal diabetes management.
Enhanced Quality of Life: The convenience of CGM devices reduces the need for frequent finger pricks, leading to an improved quality of life for individuals managing diabetes. The constant insights also alleviate anxiety related to unpredictable glucose fluctuations.
Med Supply US: Bringing Hope to Diabetes Management:
Med Supply US has emerged as a prominent supplier of CGM devices, offering a range of options from reputable brands such as Abbott and Dexcom. The availability of CGMs through Med Supply US has made these cutting-edge devices accessible to a wider demographic, bridging the gap between technology and healthcare.
Med Supply US not only provides access to CGM devices but also plays a crucial role in educating individuals about their benefits. Through informative resources, they empower users to make informed choices based on their specific needs and preferences. Furthermore, their commitment to customer support ensures that users can seamlessly integrate CGM devices into their daily routines.
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CGM devices
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There is only one way for women to reach full human potential—by participating in the mainstream of society, by exercising their own voice in all the decisions shaping that society. For women to have full identity and freedom, they must have economic independence. Breaking through the barriers that had kept them from the jobs and professions rewarded by society was the first step, but it wasn’t sufficient. It would be necessary to change the rules of the game to restructure professions, marriage, the family, the home. The manner in which offices and hospitals are structured, along the rigid, separate, unequal, unbridgeable lines of secretary/executive, nurse/doctor, embodies and perpetuates the feminine mystique. But the economic part would never be complete unless a dollar value was somehow put on the work done by women in the home, at least in terms of social security, pensions, retirement pay. And housework and child rearing would have to be more equally shared by husband, wife, and society. Equality and human dignity are not possible for women if they are not able to earn. When the young radical kids came into the movement, they said it was “boring” or “reformist” or “capitalist co-option” to place so much emphasis on jobs and education. But very few women can afford to ignore the elementary economic facts of life. Only economic independence can free a woman to marry for love, not for status or financial support, or to leave a loveless, intolerable, humiliating marriage, or to eat, dress, rest, and move if she plans not to marry. But the importance of work for women goes beyond economics. How else can women participate in the action and decisions of an advanced industrial society unless they have the training and opportunity and skills that come from participating in it?
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Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique)
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Tips on Web Design and Site Marketing Web content is king, which is why we have devoted an entire chapter to it later in this book. It is what draws visitors and ultimately what converts them to customers. So, try to make your web content as engaging as possible. Make sure the content is interactive, unique and educational. Ensure that visitors have the option of plugins while encouraging them to visit as many pages on your site as possible if they want to obtain vital information. The images you use on your website should be both enticing and descriptive in nature. In today’s world, social media is all pervasive. In order to encourage visitors to share your web content, you can include icons of social media platforms on your website. In some select cases, consider integrating social media feeds, like Facebook or Instagram, onto your website so that they can automatically show the latest postings. A "Call-to-Action" can help convert visitors to your site into customers. Always try using a very clear and concise "Call-to-Action" language. Understand what type of conversion you are looking for, and try to provide multiple levels of conversion. For example, a plastic surgeon may provide Schedule an Appointment as a call to action, which will attract only the segment of web visitors who have reached their decision stage. By adding conversion points for visitors who are at earlier stages of their decision making, like signing up for a webcast or your newsletter can help you widen your conversion points and provide inputs to your email marketing. To raise the average amount of time a visitor spends on your website and to minimize the bounce rate, ensure that your website offers a user-friendly and attractive design. This way you will increase the number of links you have on your website and boost its SEO ranking (Tip: While Google’s algorithm is not public, our iterative testing shows that sites with good usability analytics metrics like time on site and bounce rate play favorably in Google’s algorithm, other things remaining constant). Ensure you observe due diligence when designing a website that will enable visitors to navigate in different languages. For example, you may need a lot more space for your menu, as there are languages that use up more space than the English language.
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Danny Basu (Digital Doctor: Integrated Online Marketing Guide for Medical and Dental Practices)
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Finding a fine British International school can be a challenge if you live in a place like Dubai. Known as a melting pot of cultures, Dubai offers many choices when it comes to curriculum preferences. Digging the web for valuable options can leave in you bind as well.
But, to find the right and affordable British school in Dubai you must have a clear picture of the options available. To make your work easier, here is a list to help you pick the best British curriculum school in Dubai.
The best British International schools in Dubai
Listed below are the top picks of English Schools in Dubai:
The Winchester School
This English school in Dubai is the right example of high-quality education at affordable rates. The Winchester School is an ideal pick as it maintains the desired level of British curriculum standards and has a KHDA rating as ‘good’.
Admission: This school is fully inclusive for kids aged 1-13 and it conducts no entrance exam for foundation level. However, for other phases, necessary entrance tests are taken according to the standard.
Also, admissions here do not follow the concept of waiting lists, which can depend on the vacant seats and disability criteria.
Fees: AED 12,996- AED 22,996
Curriculum: National Curriculum of England-EYFS(Early Years Foundation Stage), IGCSE, International A-Level, and International AS Level.
Location: The Gardens, Jebel Ali Village, Jebel Ali
Contact: +971 (0)4 8820444, principal_win@gemsedu.com
Website: The Winchester School - Jebel Ali
GEMS Wellington Internation School
GEMS Wellington Internation School is yet another renowned institute titled the best British curriculum school in Dubai. It has set a record of holding this title for nine years straight which reveals its commendable standards.
Admission: For entrance into this school, an online registration process must be completed. A non-refundable fee of AED 500 is applicable for registration. Students of all gender and all stages can enroll in any class from Preschool to 12th Grade.
Fees: AED 43,050- AED 93,658
Curriculum: GCSE, IB, IGCSE, BTEC, and IB DP
Location: Al South Area
Contact: +971 (0)4 3073000, reception_wis@gemsedu.com
Website: Outstanding British School in Dubai - GEMS Wellington International School
Dubai British School
Dubai British School is yet another prestigious institute that is also a member of the ‘Taaleem’ group. It is also one of the first English schools to open and get a KHDA rating of ‘Outstanding’. Thus, it can be easily relied on to provide the curriculum of guaranteed quality.
Admission: Here, the application here can be initiated by filling up an online form. Next, the verification requires documents such as copies of UAE Residence Visa, Identification card, Medical Form, Educational Psychologist’s reports, Vaccination report, and TC.
Also, students of all genders and ages between 3-18 can apply here.
Fees: AED 46,096- AED 69,145
Curriculum: UK National Curriculum, BTEC, GCSE, A LEVEL
Location: Behind Spinneys, Springs Town Centre, near Jumeirah Islands.
Contact: +971 (0)4 3619361
Website: Dubai British School Emirates Hills | Taaleem School
Final takeaways
The above-listed schools are some of the best English schools in Dubai that you can find. Apart from these, you can also check King’s School Dubai, Dubai College School, Dubai English Speaking School, etc.
These offer the best British curriculum school in Dubai and can be the right picks for you. So, go on and find the right school for your kid.
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the best affordable school in Dubailand
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AIE was founded by Andrew Baxter and shows people how to trade and buy shares on the stock market, along with different trading strategies. AIE main focus in the recent years have been around Options Trading Strategies; mainly Covered Calls. Clients also receive Trade Recommendations, Advice and Tips about the markets, whether it's the Australian Markets (ASX) or the US markets.
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Australian Investment Education
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There was a watered-down version in the Senate Health and Education Committee bill, requiring any government-run insurer to charge the same rates as private insurers, but of course that would have defeated the whole purpose of a public option. My team and I thought a possible compromise might involve offering a public option only in those parts of the country where there were too few insurers to provide real competition and a public entity could help drive down premium prices overall. But even that was too much for the more conservative members of the Democratic caucus to swallow, including Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who announced shortly before Thanksgiving that under no circumstances would he vote for a package that contained a public option. When word got out that the public option had been removed from the Senate bill, activists on the left went ballistic.
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Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
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We provide Investment Education and Strategies for Options Trading, Stocks, Share Market, Forex and ETFs. Course are offered live and online. Start Today!!
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auinvestmenteducation
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I’m sure our newcomers appreciate hearing that being diagnosed with HIV is not all doom and gloom.” The leader’s gaze swept over all the others in the circle. “With an attitude like Duncan’s, great things will happen to you. Don’t let the disease define you. Make the disease work for you instead.” An hour later, the meeting was over. John had gotten the opportunity to introduce himself to the group, something he would have preferred to have skipped, but that wasn’t allowed. Everyone must participate in that part; only the question and answer session that followed was optional. He hadn’t mentioned that he used to be a cop, certainly not that he had been fired. He’d just said that he was a private eye and that he would be happy to be their spy if they needed one. “That wasn’t so bad now, was it?” Linda asked John when they were outside the room and in the hallway, where donuts and coffee and tea were served. Most of the participants milled around there, connecting with each other. John shrugged and grabbed a jelly donut. “I guess not.” The bespectacled leader named Robert came up to them then. He was on the short side and had an emaciated face with delicate features. He stuck out a bony hand toward John. John took it and gave it a firm shake. “John, it’s so nice to have you join us today,” Robert said with a broad smile that displayed big, graying teeth. Robert was HIV-positive as well, and in the chronic HIV stage. “Thank you for having me,” John said and returned the smile as best he could. “It’s been very…educational. I’m glad I came.” “Great,” Robert said, then his attention went to Linda. “Thanks for bringing your friend, Linda. And for coming again yourself.” “Oh, of course,” Linda said and smiled. Her hazel eyes glittered with warmth. “It’s a great group and you’re a great leader.” “Thank you. That’s so kind of you to say.” Robert tossed a glance over his shoulder, then leaned in toward John and Linda. “I just wanted to apologize for Doris.” “Apologize?” Linda repeated. “What did she do?” “Well, for starters, she’s not 33. She’s 64 and has been infected for thirty years. She’s also a former heroin addict and prostitute. She likes to pretend that she’s someone else entirely, and because we don’t want to upset her, we humor her. We pretend she’s being truthful when she talks about herself. I’d appreciate it if you help us keep her in the dark.” That last sentence had a tension to it that the rest of Robert’s words hadn’t had. It was almost like he’d warned them not to go against his will, or else. Not that it had been necessary to impress that on either John or Linda. John especially appreciated the revelation. Maybe having HIV was not as gruesome as Doris had made it seem then. Six Yvonne jerked awake when the phone rang. It rang and rang for several seconds before she realized where she was and what was going on. She pushed herself up on the bed and glanced around for the device. When she eventually spotted it on the floor beside the bed, it had stopped ringing. Even so, she rolled over on her side and fished it up to the bed. Crossing her legs Indian-style, she checked who had called her. It was Gabe, which was no surprise. He was the only one who had her latest burner number. He had left her a voicemail. She played it. “Mom, good news. I have the meds. Jane came through. Where do you want me to drop them off? Should I come to the motel? Call me.” Exhilaration streamed through her and she was suddenly wide awake. She made a fist in the air. Yes! Finally something was going their way. Now all they had to do was connect without Gabe leading the cops to her. She checked the time on the ancient clock radio on the nightstand. It was past six o’clock. So she must have slept
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Julia Derek (Cuckoo Avenged (Cuckoo Series, #4))
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None of this matters. I mean, those people—that man and his kids who you just fed—they matter, but no one cares about them. Those kids ar the future if they don't starve to death. But if they manage to grow up, what kind of men will they be?'
'That's what Earthseed was about,' I said. 'I wanted us to understand what we could be, what we could do. I wanted to give us a focus, a goal, something big enough, complex enough, difficult enough, and in the end, radical enough to make us become more than we ever have been. We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about our own bodies, more technology, but somehow, down through history, we go on building empires of one kind or another, then destroying them in one way or another. We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that's the way things are. That's the way things have always been.'
'It is,' Len said.
'It is,' I repeated. 'There seem to be solid biological reasons why we are the way we are. If there weren't, the cycles wouldn't keep replaying. The human species is a kind of animal, of course. But we can do something no other animal species has ever had the option to do. We can choose: We can go on building and destroying until we either destroy ourselves or destroy the ability of our world to sustain us. Or we can make something more of ourselves. We can grow up. We can leave the nest. We can fulfil the Destiny, make homes for ourselves among the stars, and become some combination of what we want to become and whatever our new environments challenge us to become. Our new worlds will remake us as we remake them. And some of the new people who emerge from all this will develop new ways to cope. They'll have to. That will break the old cycle, even if it's only to begin a new one, a different one.
'Earthseed is about preparing to fulfil the Destiny. It's about learning to live in partnership with one another in small communities, and at the same time, working out a sustainable partnership with our environment. It's about treating education and adaptability as the absolute essentials that they are. It's...' I glanced at Len, caught a little smile on her face, and wound down. 'It's about a lot more than that,' I said. 'But those are the bones.'
'Makes a strange sermon.'
'I know.
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Octavia E. Butler (Parable of the Talents (Earthseed, #2))
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Another option was to force citizens to lend money—that is, to impose “forced loans.
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Maristella Botticini (The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492 (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World Book 42))