Your Legitimacy Quotes

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When you’re an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand. And you feel stupid doing it.
Amanda Palmer (The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help)
There’s no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to art school, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.
Amanda Palmer (The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help)
Sometimes, this disapproval of how you are managing your pain crosses over to disbelief that you are in as much pain as you say you are. They don’t believe that your pain is a legitimate enough reason to rest or nap or cry or take narcotic medications or not go to work or to go to the doctor. They might think that you are making too big of a deal out of it. They doubt the legitimacy of the pain itself. This kind of stigma is the source of the dreaded accusation that chronic pain is “all in your head.” It’s as if to say that you are making a mountain out of a molehill.
Murray J. McAlister
To listen does not mean, or even imply, that you agree with someone. It simply means you accept the legitimacy of the other person's point of view and that you might have something to learn from it. It also means that you embrace the possibility that there might be multiple truths and understanding them all might lead to a larger truth. Good listeners know understanding is not binary.
Kate Murphy (You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters)
Of course, at some point you had to ask yourself how much legitimacy any government had that feared dissension within more than invasion from without, but if you had any desire for a quiet life, you kept those thoughts inside your skull
Yoon Ha Lee (Raven Stratagem (The Machineries of Empire, #2))
I urge you strongly not to give Stop the Goodreads Bullies traffic. Their initial postings were all doxings of reviewers. ... There are a lot of arguments on the legitimacy of doxing, but I think most reasonable people would agree that the response to a negative - not even libelous - review should not be the open posting of a reviewer's address. That's not the counter of speech by more speech, but with an implicit threat. It's not that you're wrong, and here's why; it's that I know where you live.
G.R. Reader (Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt)
There’s no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to art school, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are.
Amanda Palmer (The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help)
Engaging in a debate implies that the opposite side has legitimacy; debating with Richard Spencer implies that his ethnonationalism is a substantive position worth sharing with your audience. It’s a pernicious influence masked in “reasonableness.
Talia Lavin (Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy)
When I was a youngster, all the progressive people were saying, “Why all this prudery? Let us treat sex just as we treat all our other impulses.” I was simple-minded enough to believe they meant what they said. I have since discovered that they meant exactly the opposite. They meant that sex was to be treated as no other impulse in our nature has ever been treated by civilized people. All the others, we admit, have to be bridled. Absolute obedience to your instinct for self-preservation is what we call cowardice; to your acquisitive impulse, avarice. Even sleep must be resisted if you’re a sentry. But every unkindness and breach of faith seems to be condoned provided that the object aimed at is “four bare legs in a bed.” It is like having a morality in which stealing fruit is considered wrong—unless you steal nectarines. And if you protest against this view you are usually met with chatter about the legitimacy and beauty and sanctity of “sex” and accused of harboring some Puritan prejudice against it as something disreputable or shameful. I deny the charge. Foam-born Venus … golden Aphrodite … Our Lady of Cyprus… I never breathed a word against you. If I object to boys who steal my nectarines, must I be supposed to disapprove of nectarines in general? Or even of boys in general? It might, you know, be stealing that I disapproved of.
C.S. Lewis (God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics)
The entrepreneur's exclamation is thus essentially reducible to an 'I feel like doing something.'. Well then, great! Do it! But do it on your own - if you can. If that is not possible, the problem changes completely. The legitimacy of wanting to do something does not extend to wanting to make other people do it.
Frédéric Lordon (Willing Slaves of Capital: Spinoza and Marx on Desire)
To listen does not mean, or even imply, that you agree with someone. It simply means you accept the legitimacy of the other person's point of view and that you might have something to learn from it. It also means that you embrace the possibility that there might be multiple truths and understanding them all might lead to a larger truth.
Kate Murphy (You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters)
But what actually matters are the hundreds of small things that the powerful do—or don’t do—to establish their legitimacy, like sleeping in the bed of an innocent man you just shot accidentally and scattering your belongings around his house.
Malcolm Gladwell (David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants)
When you’re an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand. And you feel stupid doing it. There’s no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to art school, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.
Amanda Palmer (The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help)
Of course it’s real, you bloody git,” Frank said to the young man behind the fruit cart, who had apparently questioned the legitimacy of this form of currency. “That’s a genuine piece of eight. I could buy your whole cart with it.” Great, I thought, sarcastically. John and his crew were doing an excellent job of blending in. Kayla appeared to be thinking along similar lines, since she asked, “Where are those guys from, anyway?” “Here,” I assured her. “Really?” She looked skeptical. The fruit vendor had apparently decided the piece of eight was authentic, and was surrendering more fruit on a stick than Henry could carry. “Because I’d have remembered seeing him around here. And I don’t want to get into some whole long-distance thing. Those never work out.” I smiled, meeting John’s gaze. “Oh,” I said, “you never know.
Meg Cabot (Underworld (Abandon, #2))
The legitimacy of your desires to exist is paramount to manifesting your desires within your reality.
Steven Redhead (Keys to the Laws of Creation)
Like how the government of General Abacha was using its foreign policy to legitimize itself in the eyes of other African countries.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (The Thing Around Your Neck)
There’s legitimacy to your dreams, same as there was to mine.
Kellyn Roth (After Our Castle (The Chronicles of Alice and Ivy, #6))
What are we to make of the stubborn bitter truth that one's legitimacy is judged by whether one appears to be ''happy'' or ''unhappy''; that one's work is somehow assessed in terms of the spiritual uplift it offers? ''Happiness'' is predicated as a cultural norm, so that any deviation from it, however justified, however inescapable, arouses not only pity but reproach. As true as this might be for male writers, it is all the more true for female writers, since there is a violation of some unspoken rule in the very fact that a woman writes - that is, thinks.
Joyce Carol Oates
The responsible left came to embrace legislative Republicanism single-mindedly, not out of fear but out of wisdom—knowing that the only way to maintain the real revolution was to accept in permanence the truth that rejecting the legitimacy of the opposition could end only in violence, real liberal republicanism being no more than the understanding that there are legitimate ideas about shaping the future of the nation other than your own.
Anonymous
Well, naturally. Keir is descended from my line. Our virility is unmatched." Westcliff tried to look severe. "You realize, Kingston, that my first grandchild has been sired by your illegitimate offspring." "Yes, yes, who cares about legitimacy. This child will be magnificent. With my looks and your brains..." "It could have my looks and your brains," Westcliff pointed out. "Don't be such a pessimist. Bring the brandy bottle over here, and we'll start making plans." And the two old friends grinned at each other as they clinked their glasses.
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels, #7))
I find the US initiative highly problematic. You can write donations off in your taxes to a large degree in the USA. So the rich make a choice: Would I rather donate or pay taxes? The donors are taking the place of the state. That's unacceptable....It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires. So it's not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That's a development that I find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?
Peter Krämer, German multi-millionaire
The role unquestioned assumptions play becomes obvious if we look back at sociopolitical norms of the past, things like the absolute power of royalty, political participation only for men, property passed to the eldest son, slavery, serfdom, a prohibition on divorce, only men being allowed to file for divorce, only property holders being allowed to vote, child labor, colonization, and the “white man’s burden.” For a long time each of these was assumed to be an intrinsic part of the given culture, and passed unnoticed and uncontested until its presence was brought into the foreground and its legitimacy questioned.
Bernard Roth (The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life)
What's in a name? that which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.' In other words, the essence of an object does not change depending on it's name. This is a common misconception not unlike the 'world is flat' belief. By verbally identifying an object, by giving it a name, we alter it. And at the same time we prevent it from changing. A name is like a forked stick that we use to hold a snake on the ground." Portnov imitated using a forked branch to press down an imaginary viper. "By the way, consider this: the contradictory nature of a statement almost certainly proves its legitimacy... Come in." [...] "May I continue? Thank you. However, there is also another misconception-by which a name automatically defines the properties of an object. Here is a pen." He tossed up and caught a dark-blue pen with a white top. "If I give it the name of... an earthworm, will it slither?" Second years, Group A, maintained a tense silence. No one wanted to risk an answer. "It will not." Portnov let the pen fall on his desk. "Because this given piece of plastic has nothing in common with the process and events that we are talking about, that we spend time studying... between dance parties and dealing with gastrointestinal problems. Besides, when I say 'give a name,' I do not imply any of the languages that are commonly used by any of the living persons. I am talking about Speech, which you will begin to study during your third year. Some of you may start earlier.
Marina Dyachenko (Vita Nostra (Vita Nostra, #1))
The last section, Mostly Harmless, is my most personal rant. It is directed at the rest of you, the 20% or so who would never in a million years call yourselves atheists but who practice such a watered-down version of your own religion that you’re just one honest admission away from being atheists. It is an angry and impassioned plea to those of you who most likely champion progressive social causes during the day but who still cling to, or gloss over, the wild superstitions of your parents’ religion at night. Mostly, though, it’s my explanation of why I have no patience for your insistence on the virtues of religious tradition and why your actions (and inactions) give legitimacy to the very dark-ages policies and politics you claim to abhor.
D. Cameron Webb (Despicable Meme: The Absurdity and Immorality of Modern Religion)
Tell you what: Ask a Baptist wife why her husband treats her like a personal slave. Ask a homosexual couple why their love for one another is treated as a sick joke in some parts of the world and as a crime punishable by death in others. Ask a starving African mother with ten starving children why she doesn't practice birth control. Ask a young Muslim girl why her parents sliced off her clitoris. Ask millions of Muslim women why they cannot attend schools or show themselves in public except through the eye slits of a full-body burqa. Ask the Pakistani woman who's gang-raped why she is sentenced to death while her rapists go free, and why it’s her own family leading the murderous chorus. Ask the American woman who’s raped why her local congressman would question the “legitimacy” of that rape and would force her to bring her rapist’s child to term. Ask the dead Christian children why their fundamentalist parents wouldn’t give them an antibiotic to stave off their infection or an insulin injection to control their diabetes. Ask the Parkinson’s or paralysis victims why their cures have been mired in religious and political red tape for decades now because an increasingly hysterical and radical segment of American society believes that a clump of cells with no identity and no consciousness has more rights than they do. Ask them all to point to the source of their misery, and then ask yourself why it doesn't bother you that they are pointing to the same goddamned book you're using in your religious services and in the celebration of your “harmless” and “quaint” traditions.
D. Cameron Webb (Despicable Meme: The Absurdity and Immorality of Modern Religion)
It’s important to distinguish between explaining and excusing. Explaining why something happened is vital if you want to stop it from happening in the future. If a train derails, experts are going to do their best to determine what went wrong—they want to explain the wreck. The more accurately they can explain it, the better chance they have of making sure it doesn’t happen again. However, by explaining it they’re not lending it any kind of legitimacy or taking away from the tragedy of what happened. They’re just trying to understand why it happened. The same is true for people. It’s possible that there’s no excuse for the behavior of someone you’re talking to on the other side. Okay, then. Don’t excuse it. But it’s still important to try to understand and explain why they do what they do—what they understand to be motivating their behavior—even if you completely disagree with their rationale.
Justin Lee (Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World)
Oh, sure, they all went through the motions. For almost two weeks, they paraded out witnesses and experts and walked us through a chain of custody and exhibits A to Z, all of which I guess gave legitimacy to what was already a foregone conclusion. I was guilty. Hell, as far as the police and the prosecutor and the judge and even my own defense attorney were concerned, I was born guilty. Black, poor, without a father most of my life, one of ten children—it was actually pretty amazing I had made it to the age of twenty-nine without a noose around my neck. But justice is a funny thing, and in Alabama, justice isn't blind. She knows the color of your skin, your education level, and how much money you have in the bank. I may not have had any money, but I had enough education to understand exactly how justice was working in this trial and exactly how it was going to turn out. The good old boys had traded in their white robes for black robes, but it was still a lynching.
Anthony Ray Hinton (The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row)
One way I try to do it is to observe that in any other area of life that people take seriously, they naturally assume there’s legitimacy to objective values. Take a golf swing. Nobody would seriously say, “Just go swing it any way you want to, because who am I to tell you what to do?” Well, how would that work out? Horrifically. We know that in something like golf, you start to internalize objective ideals, and in that process, you become freer and freer. You become a freer player of golf, and you can actually do what you want to do. That’s true of anything—language, music, politics, anything. You begin to internalize objective values in such a way that they now become the ground for your freedom, and not the enemy of your freedom. The binary option we have to get past is “my freedom versus your oppression.” What we need to say is, No, no, the objectivity of the moral good enables your freedom, opens freedom up. Once you get that, you see the Church is not the enemy of your flourishing, but the condition for it.
Robert Barron (To Light a Fire on the Earth: Proclaiming the Gospel in a Secular Age)
And the extraordinary thing is that according to these texts all powers, all the power and glory of the kingdoms, all that has to do with politics and political authority, belongs to the devil. It has all been given to him and he gives it to whom he wills. Those who hold political power receive it from him and depend upon him. (It is astonishing that in the innumerable theological discussions of the legitimacy of political power, no one has ever adduced these texts! [Matthew 4:8-9; Luke 4:6-7]) This fact is no less important than the fact that Jesus rejects the devil's offer. Jesus does not say to the devil: It is not true. You do not have power over kingdoms and states. He does not dispute this claim. He refuses the offer of power because the devil demands that he should fall down before him. This is the sole point when he says: 'You shall worship the Lord your God and you shall serve him, only him' (Matthew 4:10). We may thus say that among Jesus' immediate followers and in the first Christian generation political authorities - what we call the state - belonged to the devil and those who held power received it from him.
Jacques Ellul (Anarchy and Christianity)
Nevertheless, in certain respects and in certain places, despite philosophy, despite progress, the spirit of the cloister lingers on, in the middle of the nineteenth century, and a bizarre new outbreak of asceticism now astounds the civilized world. The persistence of antiquated institutions in perpetuating themselves is like the stubbornness of stale scent clinging to your hair, the urgency of spoiled fish clamouring to be eaten, the oppression of childish garb expecting to clothe the adult, and the tenderness of corpses wanting to come back to kiss the living. 'Ungrateful wretch!' says the garment. 'I protected you in bad weather. Why will you have nothing more to do with me?' 'I come from the open sea,' says the fish. 'I was a rose,' says the perfume. 'I loved you,' says the corpse. 'I civilized you,' says the convent. There is only one answer to this: once upon a time. To dream of the indefinite protraction of defunct things and of embalmment as a way of governing mankind, to restore ravaged dogmas, regild shrines, patch up cloisters, re-bless reliquaries, revitalize superstitions, refuel fanaticisms, replace the handles on holy-water sprinklers and on sabres, recreate monasticism and militarism, to believe in the salvation of society by the multiplication of the parasites, to force the past on the present - this seems strange. Still, there are theorists who propound these theories. Such theorists, and they are intelligent people, have a very simple method: they put a gloss on the past, a gloss they call 'social order', 'divine right', 'morality', 'family', 'respect for elders', 'ancient authority', 'sacred tradition', 'legitimacy', 'religion', and they go about shouting, 'Look! Take this, honest people.' This logic was known to the ancients The haruspices practiced it. They rubbed a black heifer with chalk and said, 'It's white.' We ourselves respect the past in certain instances and in all cases grant it clemency, provided it consents to being dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack and try to kill it. Superstitions, bigotries, false pieties, prejudices, these spectres, for all that they are spectres, cling to life. They have teeth and nails in their vaporousness, and they must be tackled head-on, and war must be waged against them, and it must be waged constantly. For it is one of the fates of humanity to be doomed to eternal battle against phantoms. Shades are difficult to throttle and destroy.
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
The next day, it was still raining when Lee issued his final order to his troops, known simply as General Orders Number 9. After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to the result from no distrust of them. But feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that would compensate for the loss that must have attended the continuance of the contest, I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms of the agreement officers and men can return to their homes and remain until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray that a Merciful God will extended to you His blessing and protection. With an increasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous considerations for myself, I bid you all an affectionate farewell. For generations, General Orders Number 9 would be recited in the South with the same pride as the Gettysburg Address was learned in the North. It is marked less by its soaring prose—the language is in fact rather prosaic—but by what it does say, bringing his men affectionate words of closure, and, just as importantly, what it doesn’t say. Nowhere does it exhort his men to continue the struggle; nowhere does it challenge the legitimacy of the Union government that had forced their surrender; nowhere does it fan the flames of discontent. In fact, Lee pointedly struck out a draft paragraph that could have been construed to do just that.
Jay Winik (April 1865: The Month That Saved America)
a young Goldman Sachs banker named Joseph Park was sitting in his apartment, frustrated at the effort required to get access to entertainment. Why should he trek all the way to Blockbuster to rent a movie? He should just be able to open a website, pick out a movie, and have it delivered to his door. Despite raising around $250 million, Kozmo, the company Park founded, went bankrupt in 2001. His biggest mistake was making a brash promise for one-hour delivery of virtually anything, and investing in building national operations to support growth that never happened. One study of over three thousand startups indicates that roughly three out of every four fail because of premature scaling—making investments that the market isn’t yet ready to support. Had Park proceeded more slowly, he might have noticed that with the current technology available, one-hour delivery was an impractical and low-margin business. There was, however, a tremendous demand for online movie rentals. Netflix was just then getting off the ground, and Kozmo might have been able to compete in the area of mail-order rentals and then online movie streaming. Later, he might have been able to capitalize on technological changes that made it possible for Instacart to build a logistics operation that made one-hour grocery delivery scalable and profitable. Since the market is more defined when settlers enter, they can focus on providing superior quality instead of deliberating about what to offer in the first place. “Wouldn’t you rather be second or third and see how the guy in first did, and then . . . improve it?” Malcolm Gladwell asked in an interview. “When ideas get really complicated, and when the world gets complicated, it’s foolish to think the person who’s first can work it all out,” Gladwell remarked. “Most good things, it takes a long time to figure them out.”* Second, there’s reason to believe that the kinds of people who choose to be late movers may be better suited to succeed. Risk seekers are drawn to being first, and they’re prone to making impulsive decisions. Meanwhile, more risk-averse entrepreneurs watch from the sidelines, waiting for the right opportunity and balancing their risk portfolios before entering. In a study of software startups, strategy researchers Elizabeth Pontikes and William Barnett find that when entrepreneurs rush to follow the crowd into hyped markets, their startups are less likely to survive and grow. When entrepreneurs wait for the market to cool down, they have higher odds of success: “Nonconformists . . . that buck the trend are most likely to stay in the market, receive funding, and ultimately go public.” Third, along with being less recklessly ambitious, settlers can improve upon competitors’ technology to make products better. When you’re the first to market, you have to make all the mistakes yourself. Meanwhile, settlers can watch and learn from your errors. “Moving first is a tactic, not a goal,” Peter Thiel writes in Zero to One; “being the first mover doesn’t do you any good if someone else comes along and unseats you.” Fourth, whereas pioneers tend to get stuck in their early offerings, settlers can observe market changes and shifting consumer tastes and adjust accordingly. In a study of the U.S. automobile industry over nearly a century, pioneers had lower survival rates because they struggled to establish legitimacy, developed routines that didn’t fit the market, and became obsolete as consumer needs clarified. Settlers also have the luxury of waiting for the market to be ready. When Warby Parker launched, e-commerce companies had been thriving for more than a decade, though other companies had tried selling glasses online with little success. “There’s no way it would have worked before,” Neil Blumenthal tells me. “We had to wait for Amazon, Zappos, and Blue Nile to get people comfortable buying products they typically wouldn’t order online.
Adam M. Grant (Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World)
Found a startup society. This is simply an online community with aspirations of something greater. Anyone can found one, just like anyone can found a company or cryptocurrency.2 And the founder’s legitimacy comes from whether people opt to follow them. Organize it into a group capable of collective action. Given a sufficiently dedicated online community, the next step is to organize it into a network union. Unlike a social network, a network union has a purpose: it coordinates its members for their mutual benefit. And unlike a traditional union, a network union is not set up solely in opposition to a particular corporation, so it can take a variety of different collective actions.3 Unionization is a key step because it turns an otherwise ineffective online community into a group of people working together for a common cause. Build trust offline and a cryptoeconomy online. Begin holding in-person meetups in the physical world, of increasing scale and duration, while simultaneously building an internal economy using cryptocurrency. Crowdfund physical nodes. Once sufficient trust has been built and funds have been accumulated, start crowdfunding apartments, houses, and even towns to bring digital citizens into the physical world within real co-living communities. Digitally connect physical communities. Link these physical nodes together into a network archipelago, a set of digitally connected physical territories distributed around the world. Nodes of the network archipelago range from one-person apartments to in-person communities of arbitrary size. Physical access is granted by holding a web3 cryptopassport, and mixed reality is used to seamlessly link the online and offline worlds. Conduct an on-chain census. As the society scales, run a cryptographically auditable census to demonstrate the growing size of your population, income, and real-estate footprint. This is how a startup society proves traction in the face of skepticism. Gain diplomatic recognition. A startup society with sufficient scale should eventually be able to negotiate for diplomatic recognition from at least one pre-existing government, and from there gradually increased sovereignty, slowly becoming a true network state.
Balaji S. Srinivasan (The Network State: How To Start a New Country)
Witness. The moralist believes in proselytizing, because “we are right, and they are wrong.” Such an approach is almost always offensive. The relativist/pragmatist approach denies the legitimacy of evangelism altogether. Yet the gospel produces a constellation of traits in us. We are compelled to share the gospel out of generosity and love, not guilt. We are freed from the fear of being ridiculed or hurt by others, since we have already received the favor of God by grace. Our dealings with others reflect humility because we know we are saved only by grace alone, not because of our superior insight or character. We are hopeful about everyone, even the “hard cases,” because we were saved only because of grace, not because we were people likely to become Christians. We are courteous and careful with people. We don’t have to push or coerce them, for it is only God’s grace that opens hearts, not our eloquence or persistence or even their openness (Exod 4:10–12). Together, these traits create not only an excellent neighbor in a multicultural society but also a winsome evangelist.
Timothy J. Keller (Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City)
No!” She yanked it away, curling protectively around it. He felt like she had slapped him. “What do you think I am going to do, snatch it and throw it in the lake?” he demanded in an angry voice. She took a step back, and he followed. “Do you?” “Shhhh!” she said in a fierce whisper. “People are still sleeping!” He stepped closer, his face inches from hers. “And I am dying here because a woman I have hankered after for years just kicked me in the teeth. Again.” Mollie blanched. “Why do you keep talking like that? We barely know each other!” He was mad enough to spit fire. “I couldn’t court a woman who did business with Hartman’s,” he ground out. “That was the quickest route for me to get canned, but after the fire, I don’t care anymore about rules. You are a woman I want in my life, but my hand to God, if you keep accusing me of trying to swindle you, I am liable to combust.” Her eyes narrowed in distrust, and he was smart enough to know that blasted scrap of paper was going to be a wedge between them forever unless he could figure a way to dispose of it. He settled his hands on her shoulders. “Mollie, you have a piece of paper. In the coming years, the court system in this city is going to be swamped with a legal quagmire the likes of which this country has never seen before. With the archives of the courthouse in ashes, there is no way to prove the legitimacy of that deed.” “No way to disprove it either.” “Exactly.” He turned her around and cupped the side of her face. He tried using a gentle pressure to nudge her face up to look at him, but she resisted. “Mollie, I have cared about you for years. I have made a great study of Mollie Knox and the way she runs her business, but you know nothing about me. I suppose it is not fair for me to expect you to trust me when I’ve never been more than the man signing off on your quarterly revenue statements. Come live at my house. Bring Frank. Heaven help me, you can even bring Sophie, but come. I can’t stand the thought of you shivering in that church. No matter what it takes, I intend to earn your trust, and after that, you’d better put an armed guard around your heart, because I plan on winning you and folding you into my life. Fair warning, woman.” Mollie squinted at something over his shoulder, and Zack realized she had not been paying attention to a single word he’d said.
Elizabeth Camden (Into the Whirlwind)
As Palestinians, our legitimacy depends on whether or not we "recognize" Israel. But supporters of Israel are not required to even acknowledge that Palestinians exist. For an Arab to be taken seriously, he must be "tolerant" of Jews (whatever that means). When a Jew is tolerant of Arabs, he is "open-minded" and forward-thinking." At the essence of the Palestinian question lies this complete inequality, this absolute and utter disparity in status. It is almost surreal for the oppressors to be demanding "tolerance" from the oppressed. But it is not without precedent. In America, whites in power demanded that blacks "behave" before they considered "giving" them rights. In South Africa, blacks had to conduct themselves "civilly" before they were taken seriously by the apartheid regime and, indeed, by some powerful political forces here in America. This sort of calculated framing of the debate by Israel and her supporters serves to silence any Palestinian narrative. Well, guess what? I don't need anyone's permission to be Palestinian. I don't need your go-ahead to tell my story. And you thinking I do kind of pisses me off.
Amer Zahr (Being Palestinian Makes Me Smile)
Whatever you acknowledgement gains the legitimacy to exist within your world.
Steven Redhead (Life Is Simply A Game)
no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to art school, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.
Amanda Palmer (The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help)
You were a physician before you became a vampire, so I will allow this…distraction to run its course.” Alex inclined his head. “Thank you.” “I am surprised I must remind you after all this time of your obligation to me. You would be long in your human grave if not for me. I am your maker. You swore your fealty to me in return for your making.” “I have not forgotten.” The words fell stiffly from his lips. The facts of his making and the duties required of him were emblazoned in his mind in fiery emphasis. “But I would remind you that in this human world we live you are my wife and should honor me as a good woman would. I provide you with the leverage you need to fulfill your ambitions. Before you met me, you were a hunted witch living in the most desperate circumstances. As your husband, I give you a cloak of legitimacy and respectability. It would do you well not to forget that.” This time, Anna’s surprise held her speechless. She stared at him, a frown marring the flesh between her thick brows. “I
Tracy Cooper-Posey (Time Kissed Moments (Kiss Across Time #2.5))
I find the US initiative highly problematic. You can write donations off in your taxes to a large degree in the USA. So the rich make a choice: Would I rather donate or pay taxes? The donors are taking the place of the state. That's unacceptable....It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires. So it's not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That's a development that I find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?" ~ " I find the US initiative highly problematic. You can write donations off in your taxes to a large degree in the USA. So the rich make a choice: Would I rather donate or pay taxes? The donors are taking the place of the state. That's unacceptable....It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires. So it's not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That's a development that I find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?
Peter Krämer, German multi-millionaire
What should be marginalized as the practices and customs of lunatics is instead given legitimacy by your complete failure to speak out against the source of that insanity. Because their books are your books. Their religions are your religions.
D. Cameron Webb (Despicable Meme: The Absurdity and Immorality of Modern Religion)
all day long because it’s what you’ve been trained to do. But if, in your heart, you believe that the pain you’re feeling is real and if you believe it’s connected to some underlying condition, it is unlikely that the pain or the spirit will leave. Demons are more sensitive to what you think than what you say. Your belief in the legitimacy of the symptoms plays into the agenda of the evil spirit and what you believe can allow it to remain there. What we believe about the afflicting spirit can either empower it or remove its power over us. The degree to which any spirit can influence us is determined by how much we believe what it says.
Praying Medic (Seeing in the Spirit Made Simple (The Kingdom of God Made Simple))
Today, the contraceptive sheath is used for seduction. `He seeks to seduce her, she resists, he brings out his condom, she falls into his arms.' She would, in the past, have been seduced by the erection; now, she is seduced by the protection. A step further, and being HIV positive [séropositif] will be seductive in itself (`This product can damage your health' serves almost as an advertising slogan). We have seen on our walls and our buses: `I'm HIV positive -- will you come to the dining hall with me? (say yes!)'; `Im a mongol -- will you come and play with me?`; Sero is beautiful. The direst thing becomes an advertising statement. A new moral order, a new conviviality based on this marvellous legitimacy of difference, even when it is the difference of the negative and the lack of living.
Jean Baudrillard (The Perfect Crime)
Thanks to “The Trial”, Kafka bequeathed to us at least two concept words that have become indispensable for understanding the modern world: tribunal and trial. He bequeathed them to us: meaning that he put them at our disposal, for us to use, consider, and reconsider in terms of our own experiences. Tribunal: this does not signify the juridical institution intended for punishing people who have violated the laws of a state; the tribunal (or court) in Kafka's sense is a power that judges, that judges because it is a power; its power and nothing but its power is what confers legitimacy on the tribunal; when the two intruders enter his room, K. immediately recognizes that power, and he submits. The trial brought by the tribunal is always absolute; meaning that it does not concern an isolated act, a specific crime (theft, fraud, rape), but rather concerns the character of the accused in its entirety: K. searches for his offense in "the most minute events" of his whole life; in our century, by this standard, Bezukhov would have been indicted for both his love and his hatred of Napoleon. And also for his drunkennness, since, being absolute, the trial concerns private life as well as public; Brod condemned K. to death for seeing in women only the "lowest sexuality”;… The trial is absolute as well in that it does not keep within the limits of the defendant's life; thus K.s uncle says: "Do you want to lose this trial? ... It means that you will be absolutely ruined. And all your relatives along with you." The guilt of one Jew contains within it that of the Jews of all times; the Communist doctrine on the influence of class origin includes within the offense of the accused the offense of his parents and grandparents; in the trial of Europe for the crime of colonialism, Sartre accused not the colonists but Europe, all of Europe, the Europe of all times; because "there is a colonist in each of us," because "being a man here means being an accomplice since we have all profited from colonial exploitation." The spirit of the trial recognizes no statute of limitations; the distant past is as alive as today's event; and even in death you will not escape: there are informers in the cemetery. The trial's memory is colossal, but it is a very specific memory, which could be defined as the forgetting of everything not a crime.
Milan Kundera (Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts)
To listen does not mean, or even imply, that you agree with someone. It simply means you accept the legitimacy of the other person's point of view and that you might have something to learn from it.
Kate Murphy (You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters)
After all, what was school for, but to strain your eyes in order to decipher what a doctor had said, which was a question you should especially ask if the prescriptions were from an optometrist that questioned the legitimacy of his teachings.
J.S. Mason (The Satyrist...And Other Scintillating Treats)
The first fifty years of our lives are a lot about seeking legitimacy, you know. We crave social approval. We want our peers to respect us. We hope our neighbors will like us. We buy all sorts of things we really don’t need and obsess about making money we really don’t enjoy.
Robin S. Sharma (The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life)
Recently, the legitimacy of VO2max as a measurement and the acceptance of VO2max as a practical measurement of cardio-respiratory endurance have been called into question.
Steve Magness (The Science of Running: How to find your limit and train to maximize your performance)
shift: from seeking legitimacy in society to constructing a meaningful legacy.
Robin S. Sharma (The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.)
Words control the impulses; without them children have no protective devices to slow their reactions. Frequently I am asked, “Aren’t you just begging for a blowup when you talk about intensity with kids? Aren’t you feeding them ideas or creating words for feelings that don’t really exist?” My experience, observations, and interviews tell me that spirited children feel intensely whether anyone has talked to them about it or not. Ignoring it does not make it go away. Ask children what is happening inside their bodies, and they will tell you that they can feel their blood buzzing in their veins or hornets zipping through their body. If no one has informed them that other people experience these feelings or if no one has helped them by giving names to these feelings—like anxiety, frustration, excitement, and elation—they become frightened by them. Some worry that they are sick. Some feel odd, others lost and overwhelmed. Talking verifies the sensations and emotions. It gives them legitimacy and allows the child to own them without being frightened. It also helps kids to know what to do with them, how to react, and how to manage their intensity. Most
Mary Sheedy Kurcinka (Raising Your Spirited Child: A Guide for Parents Whose Child is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent, and Energetic)
You can use standards of legitimacy both as a sword to persuade others, and as a shield to help you resist pressure to give in arbitrarily. (“I would like to give you a discount, but this price is firm. It is what General Motors paid for the same item last week; here is the bill of sale.”) Just as, by finding relevant precedent and principles a lawyer enhances his or her ability to persuade a judge, so a negotiator can enhance his or her negotiation power by finding precedents, principles, and other external criteria of fairness and by thinking of ways to present them forcefully and tellingly: “I am asking for no more and no less than you are paying others for comparable work.” “We will pay what the house is worth if we can afford it. We are offering what the similar house nearby sold for last month. Unless you can give us a good reason why your house is worth more, our
Roger Fisher (Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In)
We are trapped, you and I, in a seemingly hopeless cycle. Not a "cycle of violence" -- a lazy formulation that tells us nothing about why our conflict exists, let alone how to end it. Instead, we're trapped in what may be called a "cycle of denial." Your side denies my people's legitimacy, my right to self-determination, and my side prevents your people from achieving national sovereignty. The cycle of denial defines our shared existence, an impossible intimacy of violence, suppression, rage, despair. That is the cycle we can only break together.
Yossi Klein Halevi (Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor)
When you rent yourself to some concentration of capital in the private sector—that’s what taking a job is—you’re giving your life over to a dictatorship, in fact, an extreme form of dictatorship that reaches far beyond political dictatorships. The tyranny to which you are handing yourself over to has almost total control over you. It controls every minute of your working day: what you wear and are allowed to say, when you’re allowed to get a bathroom break, how your hands and legs move, whether you smoke cigarettes at home. Just about everything in your life is controlled by this extreme dictatorship, which goes far beyond any totalitarian dictatorship in the degree of control it exercises. That raises some questions. One is whether a socioeconomic system is legitimate if it subjects people to extreme forms of tyranny for most of their lives. And that leads to the next question, whether the wage labor contract is itself legitimate. The argument in favor of legitimacy is that the contract is freely undertaken—in the sense of Anatole France’s remark that the rich and poor are equally free to sleep under the bridge at night. In the real world, the contract is accepted under duress. You accept it or you starve, conditions exacerbated under increasing monopolization, as Marv discussed in our last session. There are very few options.
Noam Chomsky (Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance)
FIONA DE LONDRAS: We have lots of things that are very good about having a referendum on the constitution. The fact that the constitution should reflect our values, and so on, but what’s the flip side? What’s the cost? When we have a referendum like this, we literally have to stand in front of our friends, family, neighbours and say, ‘Recognise me.’ The risk is that they say no. And that causes problems; that’s hard; there’s a massive social cost to that. And me or you, we can do it, but we’re used to it, this is part of the give and take of our everyday life. We are not the typical person who needs this. We’re the atypical person. So I think about the 14-year-old in school who’s listening to this stuff on the radio. Or the 65-year-old closeted farmer in the middle of Cavan. And people are talking about us, and it’s our lives and it’s part of our lives we have no control over. That’s a massive cost. Most things are not about a core attribute of a person. That cost has arisen when we had an abortion referendum, when we had that egregious citizenships referendum, that must’ve been what it felt like for people then too. But where there was another option, I cannot fully comprehend why the government would have asked us to bear this social cost. Now, the social benefit that comes afterwards in enormous, because we’ve all these vulnerabilities we’ve exposed ourselves to, and our fellow citizens say, ‘You’re equal,’ and that is good. And it will give a level of democratic legitimacy that a Supreme Court wouldn’t give. But my God, it’s going to cost.
Una Mullally (In the Name of Love: The Movement for Marriage Equality in Ireland. An Oral History)
Face your political opponents according to legitimacy, democracy, and the constitution, not hypocrisy, autocracy, and transgression.
Ehsan Sehgal
Forgiveness is not a means to discredit the legitimacy of your pain. It is a means of crediting you for what you are worth. You are worth more. Hence, forgive more instead of settling any score. When you forgive more, you will live a peaceful life and that is how you win more and more.
Gift Gugu Mona (The True Value of Forgiveness: Quotes and Sayings)
In my experience, effective leadership is not about telling people what to do, or using people to achieve your own personal goals; this type of leadership backfires and people will either leave, find a way to leave, or do the opposite of what they are asked to do until they leave. I have come to learn that the most effective leaders build trust and legitimacy with everyone around them.
Douglas Michael Day (Perfectly Wounded: A Memoir About What Happens After a Miracle)
Human rights claims begin conversations that connect struggles and inform practices internationally. Claims documenting state-perpetrated human rights violations at Standing Rock were addressed to, and circulated among, activists in Puerto Rico, Ferguson and Palestine (and vice versa). They crossed territories and called into question states’ claims to sovereignty and legitimacy. They were starting points to share strategies of survival, resistance and imagination. As gateways, organisational human rights claims are part of blueprints for alternative futures, which will always be made in particular and historical sites of contestation.
Benjamin P. Davis (Choose Your Bearing: Édouard Glissant, Human Rights and Decolonial Ethics (Contemporary Continental Ethics))
Some innovations require social approval before they will be adopted. The barrier here is the risk of embarrassment or sanction. Think of fashion. This of your willingness to try a new greeting, like the fist bump or the Aerosmith gesture. Think of putting a rainbow flag on your social media profile to show support for same sex marriage. As more people you know adopt an innovation, you perceive less social risk in doing likewise. Social reinforcement from respected peers overcomes the legitimacy barrier.
Damon Centola
In the Western church, many people do not seek a manifestation of God’s supernatural revelation or His supernatural works. Some people are indifferent toward the idea of experiencing the power of God’s Spirit, while others reject the legitimacy of the idea outright. Many believers simply want to hear God’s Word preached and to practice certain customs and traditions associated with going to church, so that they may remain comfortable and entertained. They don’t really want the manifest presence of God in their midst, and they don’t want to make the necessary personal sacrifice of dying to their sinful nature in order to grow closer to God.
Guillermo Maldonado (Supernatural Transformation: Change Your Heart into God's Heart)
As summed up in the book "Prolife Feminism", these pioneering women felt that "abortion was the product of a social system that compelled women to remain ignorant about their bodies, that enabled men to dominate them sexually without taking responsibility for the consequences, that denied women support during and after the resulting pregnancies, and that placed far more value on a child's 'legitimacy' than on his or her life and well-being.
Russ Kick (50 Things You're Not Supposed to Know)
In American politics, power is presumptively illegitimate. It’s important to remember this. Our founding is premised on the notion that power is inherently hostile to freedom. The pamphlets of the Revolution are heavy with warnings that citizens must “jealously” guard their liberties against tyrannies of the state. The Constitution, even as it created a stronger national government, hobbled that government with checks and balances, separations of power, local prerogatives, and deliberate ambiguities meant to be resolved in favor of the people. So if power has always been suspect here, on what basis does it truly earn legitimacy in America? On this basis only: inclusion. From hatred of “taxation without representation” to passion for “equal protection of the law,” we Americans have believed in and preached inclusion. Even when we have failed to practice it.
Eric Liu (You're More Powerful than You Think: A Citizen's Guide to Making Change Happen)
I’m not expecting that you already know how to do this, and even as you learn, I am not expecting you’ll get it right. Given where our relationship is that, what your government has decided not to teach you about it-and has not expected from you within it-your total lack of understanding of our law is the very thing to be expected. I want you to want to learn, to care passionately, and to risk the vulnerability necessary in trying your hardest. I want you to persist even though some of us will judge and sneer, because after 150 years, you’ve accepted responsibility for understanding where the hurt that causes such behaviors comes from, and you account for that knowledge as you endure these negative experiences. I want you to pursue an understanding of the law of the indigenous peoples whose territory you now call home as if not only your legitimacy but also your life depended on it, because for many indigenous persons, it does.
Kiera L. Ladner (Surviving Canada: Indigenous Peoples Celebrate 150 Years of Betrayal)
Overall, try to remember that negotiating is a great thing for your kid to know how to do. You want him to learn to advocate for himself and to practice those skills for the real world. If he’s never able to “win” with his parents, he’ll internalize that message. He may be more apt to sneak, lie, or cheat to get what he wants, or to give up pushing back on authority altogether, believing that he has no voice. To improve your legitimacy, you have to show your child that he is being heard. So give him credit for making good arguments, by sometimes changing your position so that he knows that a well-thought-out argument is in fact a worthwhile pursuit.
William Stixrud (The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives)
This hypothesis, referred to as the monoamine hypothesis, grew primarily out of two main observations made in the 1950s and ’60s.14 One was seen in patients being treated for tuberculosis who experienced mood-related side effects from the antitubercular drug iproniazid, which can change the levels of serotonin in the brain. Another was the claim that reserpine, a medication introduced for seizures and high blood pressure, depleted these chemicals and caused depression—that is, until there was a fifty-four person study that demonstrated that it resolved depression.15 From these preliminary and largely inconsistent observations a theory was born, crystallized by the work and writings of the late Dr. Joseph Schildkraut, who threw fairy dust into the field in 1965 with his speculative manifesto “The Catecholamine Hypothesis of Affective Disorders.”16 Dr. Schildkraut was a prominent psychiatrist at Harvard who studied catecholamines, a class of naturally occurring compounds that act as chemical messengers, or neurotransmitters, within the brain. He looked at one neurochemical in particular, norepinephrine, in people before and during treatment with antidepressants and found that depression suppressed its effectiveness as a chemical messenger. Based on his findings, he theorized broadly about the biochemical underpinnings of mental illnesses. In a field struggling to establish legitimacy (beyond the therapeutic lobotomy!), psychiatry was desperate for a rebranding, and the pharmaceutical industry was all too happy to partner in the effort. This idea that these medications correct an imbalance that has something to do with a brain chemical has been so universally accepted that no one bothers to question it or even research it using modern rigors of science. According to Dr. Joanna Moncrieff, we have been led to believe that these medications have disease-based effects—that they’re actually fixing, curing, correcting a real disease in human physiology. Six decades of study, however, have revealed conflicting, confusing, and inconclusive data.17 That’s right: there has never been a human study that successfully links low serotonin levels and depression. Imaging studies, blood and urine tests, postmortem suicide assessments, and even animal research have never validated the link between neurotransmitter levels and depression.18 In other words, the serotonin theory of depression is a total myth that has been unjustly supported by the manipulation of data. Much to the contrary, high serotonin levels have been linked to a range of problems, including schizophrenia and autism.19 Paul Andrews, an assistant professor
Kelly Brogan (A Mind of Your Own: The Truth About Depression and How Women Can Heal Their Bodies to Reclaim Their Lives)
Advise such advice that you have implemented and applied to your life since it exhibits the legitimacy and reliability.
Ehsan Sehgal
If I had months to live, I would use that time to love Benedict Cumberbatch. Not all that time, of course, but as much of it as I wanted. I would even keep looking at pictures of him on the internet. Ridiculous, hey? It is not a good use of my time or mind, and it does not matter, and yet, there you have it. How could I ever justify this—wasting my precious time on something so unimportant? I can’t, not according to the criteria we use for deciding such things, anyway. That yardstick only measures stuff like productivity, objectivity, legitimacy, appropriateness. It doesn’t take into consideration, at all, how my love for something as silly as Benedict Cumberbatch makes me feel, and what that’s worth to me. It’s someone else’s value system, one that sees loving something, and especially loving something too much, as a bad thing, a problem, an embarrassment. It’s a system that doesn’t know how to account for all the ways in which other people might make meaning. On this measure, my love for Benedict Cumberbatch is never going to cut it, no matter how hard I try. And I’m tired of trying. If I had months to live, I would want to use that time to do what I love. After all, what could be more worthy of my time and attention than that?
Tabitha Carvan (This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something--Anything--Like Your Life Depends On It)
You just wanted to ensure the legitimacy of your heirs, which means power is more important than love. At least be a man and be straight about it. A man should never tell a woman he loves her unless he's willing to burn the world for her; I do love you. Then where are the ashes?
Penelope Barsetti (Bite the Woman That Feeds (Dirty Blood #1))
Although earning money has never been difficult, investing and saving money are never simple tasks. Scammers conned me in my case out of shares I received from a company I had long-term investments. Years passed before I could claim it, and when I did, these cybercriminals took it from me. My abrupt loss had left me broke, devoid of hope, sad, and barely able to make ends meet. When they ruin our finances and lead us to lose everything, these cybercriminals have no concept of how terrible their schemes may make our lives. Because they're never good circumstances to be in, I hate cruelty and those who deceive people. It was as if all I had was taken from me by this financial con artist. Occasionally, they would conceal their evil plans until they were about to surprise us. In addition to stating that his employer was covertly working with Daniel Meuli Web Recovery on several cyber risks, my son provided validation for the legitimacy of Daniel Meuli Web Recovery. They'll stop that, just like they stopped mine, with Daniel Meuli Web Recovery and its RECOVERY TEAM. Thanks to WhatsApp +39 351 201 3528  visit on Telegram AT Danielmeuli, with whom I had previously dealt, my money was returned. I have worked with this team, and I felt compelled to use my personal experience to warn as many people as possible and save as many of them. Contact Daniel Meuli Web Recovery right now to speak with hackers who can help you get out of that difficult situation.
"Recovering Your Funds From Crypto Scammers With Daniel Meuli Web Recovery"
You shouldn’t measure and compare the legitimacy of your pain against someone else’s. Abuse is abuse. You aren’t allowed to live of your own accord or interact with vampires of your choosing. You apologize for everything because you’ve been taught that your thoughts and feelings aren’t valid, but that’s wrong…” He pauses, suddenly meeting my gaze. “You are valid.
Karla Nikole (Vampires of Eden: Book One Oliver)
Well, where does that leave us with regard to social action and practice? The answer is very far away. There still remains an enormous gap between what we have to grasp in order to ground moral action, to choose a course of action on moral grounds. An enormous gap between that and what we, in fact, understand about human nature and the human needs that derive from it, and the human rights that derive from it. Big gap. So, we are left where we were, with the need to make an intuitive leap and to posit some judgment about what real, intrinsic human nature is. In a sense, you're staking your faith in what you think or hope human beings may be. Now, if you take as your faith that of, say, the classical liberal doctrine, you will conclude that there is no justification, there's no moral justification for the commissar, the central committee, or the cultural or corporate manager, or any of the others who control and coerce us on species grounds. The actual classical liberal view, which is very different from what is known with its deep innatist roots, is very subversive and radical because it challenges the existence of any form of authority and requires that it be justified, which can rarely be done. It's not too surprising, I think, that the actual ideas of the Enlightenment have been subjected to such a broad-ranging attack. They are radical and subversive because of the faith that they express in human capacity, and human rights, and human needs, and their richness. And that's a deeply upsetting view from the point of view of any institutional structure which is concerned with control and manipulation, or any of the people who operate within those institutional structures. Well, if one takes this position, the next thing to do is to make the intuitive leap and turn to the concrete substantive questions of acting as a moral agent, choosing a course of action. And here what you do is seek out structures of authority and domination. Often we don't see them, so you have to try to find them even though they're there. Once you notice them, you see them and seek them out. Ask the question as to whether they, in fact, are legitimate for some contingent reason, say, self-defense or whatever argument is put forth. And if they fail that test, as they almost invariably do, to move forward to dismantle them, which means solidarity, organization, and so on. That's a hard task. But there are achievements. There are real achievements. For most of human history, for example, literal human slavery was considered legitimate. In fact, considered quite praiseworthy. It was for the benefit of these depraved creatures who shouldn't be left on their own. It's only a little tiny period of human history where this is considered a total obscenity. And the fact that it is considered a total obscenity is an achievement. In the 18th century, it was pointed out that wage slavery is fundamentally not very different from slavery. If people are compelled to rent themselves in order to survive, it's not very different than selling yourself in order to survive. That's an insight that has yet to be recovered, but it's a valid one. And, in fact, notice that it grows from these same conceptions of human nature. But, at least, literal human slavery would no longer be justified by, I suppose, almost anyone. That's an achievement. It's a moral achievement. It's a moral advance. Just in our own lifetimes, the questions of the legitimacy of sexist oppression have come to the fore. It's not like anybody noticed before, but there's been a sustained and committed effort to bring them to consciousness. And it's not long ago, anybody my age will know, that it's not long ago they just didn't see it, notice it. It was just part of the background. Now, at least you see it. The problems are there, but it's a moral advance that the problems are recognized to be there. There's some effort to come to terms with them.
Noam Chomsky