The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “politics”

We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt, the Power of Defiant Goodwill, and the Art of Beginning Afresh
We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt, the Power of Defiant Goodwill, and the Art of Beginning Afresh

“It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most bleak, that the determination to think like a human being, creatively, courageously, and complicatedly, matters the most.”

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About War
About War

“Outsiders who are not themselves immersed in pain should make an effort to empathize with all suffering humans, rather than lazily seeing only part of the terrible reality. It is the job of outsiders to help maintain a space for peace.”

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D.H. Lawrence on the Hypocrisies of Social Change and What It Actually Takes to Shift the Status Quo
D.H. Lawrence on the Hypocrisies of Social Change and What It Actually Takes to Shift the Status Quo

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Nikolai Vavilov and the Living Library of Resilience: The Story of the World’s First Seed Bank and the Tragic Hero of Science Who Set Out to End Humanity’s Suffering
Nikolai Vavilov and the Living Library of Resilience: The Story of the World’s First Seed Bank and the Tragic Hero of Science Who Set Out to End Humanity’s Suffering

The most moving story of self-sacrifice in the history of science.

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What America Means: Poet Muriel Rukeyser on the Source of Character and Creativity
What America Means: Poet Muriel Rukeyser on the Source of Character and Creativity

“Creation is a delicate and experimental thing… Knowledge and effective action here become one gesture; the gesture of understanding the world and changing it.”

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War, Peace, and Our Possible Futures: George Saunders on Storytelling the World’s Fate and the Antidote to Media Manipulation
War, Peace, and Our Possible Futures: George Saunders on Storytelling the World’s Fate and the Antidote to Media Manipulation

“War is large-scale murder, us at our worst, the stupidest guy doing the cruelest thing to the weakest being.”

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Yellow Butterfly: A Moving Wordless Story About War, Hope, and Keeping the Light Alive
Yellow Butterfly: A Moving Wordless Story About War, Hope, and Keeping the Light Alive

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The Power of Being a Heretic: The Forgotten Visionary Jane Ellen Harrison on Critical Thinking, Emotional Imagination, and How to Rehumanize the World
The Power of Being a Heretic: The Forgotten Visionary Jane Ellen Harrison on Critical Thinking, Emotional Imagination, and How to Rehumanize the World

“If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of all, that new emotional imagination… begotten of enlarged sympathies and a more sensitive habit of feeling.”

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How to Bear Each Other’s Suffering: Elie Wiesel on the Antidote to Our Paralysis in the Face of World-Overwhelm
How to Bear Each Other’s Suffering: Elie Wiesel on the Antidote to Our Paralysis in the Face of World-Overwhelm

“I believe if people talk, and they talk sincerely, with the same respect that one owes to a close friend or to God, something will come out of that, something good. I would call it presence.”

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How We Co-Create and Recreate the World: Octavio Paz on Sor Juana, Poetry as Rebellion, and the Creative Collaboration Between Writers and Readers
How We Co-Create and Recreate the World: Octavio Paz on Sor Juana, Poetry as Rebellion, and the Creative Collaboration Between Writers and Readers

“A work responds to the reader’s, not the author’s, questions.”

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