Watching
ON THE SILVER GLOBE
[NA SREBRNYM GLOBIE]
Andrzej Żuławski
Poland, 1988
EMIL CIORAN
In every man sleeps a prophet, and when he wakes there is a little more evil in the world.
DON DELILLO
White Noise
How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn't they paralyze us? How is it we can survive them, at least for a little while? We drive a car, we teach a class. How is it no one sees how deeply afraid we were, last night, this morning? Is it something we all hide from each other, by mutual consent? Or do we share the same secret without knowing it? Wear the same disguise?
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
Evolution has meant that our prefrontal lobes are too small, our adrenal glands are too big, and our reproductive organs apparently designed by committee; a recipe which, alone or in combination, is very certain to lead to some unhappiness and disorder.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Hitch 22: A Memoir
I had become too accustomed to the pseudo-Left new style, whereby if your opponent thought he had identified your lowest possible motive, he was quite certain that he had isolated the only real one.
This vulgar method, which is now the norm and the standard in much non-Left journalism as well, is designed to have the effect of making any noisy moron into a master analyst.
NEIL POSTMAN
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)
We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.
As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.
JAMES BALDWIN
The Fire Next Time
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
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SIGMUND FREUD
Civilization and Its Discontents
Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.
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DAN BROWN
The Da Vinci Code
Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire.
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT
Fascism: A Warning
We cannot, of course, expect every leader to possess the wisdom of Lincoln or Mandela’s largeness of soul. But when we think about what questions might be most useful to ask, perhaps we should begin by discerning what our prospective leaders believe it worthwhile for us to hear.
Do they cater to our prejudices by suggesting that we treat people outside our ethnicity, race, creed or party as unworthy of dignity and respect?
Do they want us to nurture our anger toward those who we believe have done us wrong, rub raw our grievances and set our sights on revenge?
Do they encourage us to have contempt for our governing institutions and the electoral process?
Do they seek to destroy our faith in essential contributors to democracy, such as an independent press, and a professional judiciary?
Do they exploit the symbols of patriotism, the flag, the pledge in a conscious effort to turn us against one another?
If defeated at the polls, will they accept the verdict, or insist without evidence they have won?
Do they go beyond asking about our votes to brag about their ability to solve all problems put to rest all anxieties and satisfy every desire?
Do they solicit our cheers by speaking casually and with pumped up machismo about using violence to blow enemies away?
Do they echo the attitude of Musolini: “The crowd doesn’t have to know, all they have to do is believe and submit to being shaped.”?
Or do they invite us to join with them in building and maintaining a healthy center for our society, a place where rights and duties are apportioned fairly, the social contract is honored, and all have room to dream and grow.
The answers to these questions will not tell us whether a prospective leader is left or right-wing, conservative or liberal, or, in the American context, a Democrat or a Republican. However, they will tell us much that we need to know about those wanting to lead us, and much also about ourselves.
For those who cherish freedom, the answers will provide grounds for reassurance, or, a warning we dare not ignore.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
GEORGE CONWAY
C-SPAN - October 30, 2024
I don't want to see a Republican Party led by a fascist, but he is a fascist. He cannot help but be a fascist. His personality disorders make him a fascist. He does not care about anyone else. He does not care about the rule of law. He does not care about justice. He does not care about right and wrong.
He's a convicted criminal. He's an adjudicated sexual abuser. He is by any colloquial standard a rapist, He is a bad man. And why all of you out theresem to want to excuse him and pretend that that reality is something other than what it is and what you want it to be is the problem.
WALTER M. WILLER
A Canticle for Leibowitz
The world weighed heavily upon him. What did the world weigh? It weighs, but is not weighed. Sometimes its scales are crooked. It weighs life and labor in the balance against silver and gold. That’ll never balance. But fast and ruthless, it keeps on weighing. It spills a lot of life that way, and sometimes a little gold.