Category: Activists

Thus Spoke a Chinese Dissident

There is no revolution like the Communist revolution. You simply burn all the books, kill all of the thinking people and use the poor proletariat to create a very simple benchmark to gauge social change….

“Words Words Words”

Indeed, the very use of the word “revolution” is suspect because every historical event that people want to invest with drama and importance is given the honorific title “revolution.”  –Avishai Margalit, Views in Review: Politics…

Kindred Spirits

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. But I try to work one day at a time. If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is to start right away doing whatever…

Moving toward Perfection

When Turgenev pleaded with him to return to the literary art that had first won him fame, he did not understand that for Tolstoy the measure of true greatness was not what we were but…

Sharing Her Wealth

[Simone Weil] continued giving her comrades her lucid and sad reflections, completely free of the blur of opinion, clear of the complacency of illusion, and untouched by the concerns of personal ambition. –Gabriella Fiori, Simone Weil:…

Counter-the Culture

The highest way of living for those who take the tonsure is to aim to lack nothing while owning nothing. —Yoshida Kenkô, Essays in Idleness, translated by Meredith McKinney If you wish to possess everythingYou must…

Favorite Simone Weil Passages

It is perhaps even more useful to contemplate our stupidity than our sin.  Method of investigation— as soon as one has arrived at any position, try to find in what sense the contrary is true….