Oscar Wilde (from A Word a Day)

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation. –Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

This is another example of a statement that is true when applied to a certain range of circumstances, but that is often misapplied in our day. It is true that advances are made when someone is dissatisfied with the status quo, whether in a technical matter such as the functioning of some device or a matter of human relationships such as an oppressive law. But this doesn’t mean that all discontent is good. Often it is merely a sign of rebelliousness or other juvenile tendencies. Often enough the status quo is just right!

Bertrand Russell

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind." -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, and author (1872-1970)

It would be interesting to know if those really close to him, like his several wives and children, would have agreed with this self-assessment. His daughter Katharine wrote glowingly of him, but his third wife didn't want their son even to see him after their divorce. Also, looking at his many activities, his "unbearable pity for the sufferings of mankind" seems to have remained far removed from the actual suffering of mankind.

Paulo Freire (from Information Week Daily)

"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." -- Paulo Freire

This is an excellent reminder of what it means to be powerless and therefore of the responsibility of those who have some degree of power to protect those without. It begs the question, however, whether there is a conflict between the powerful and the powerless, in any given instance. To have power, that is, to be able to cause thing to happen according to your desire, is not necessarily the same as to oppress the weak. Often those without power oppress those without, but not always.

Now some might latch onto my use of the word protect above and accuse me of a paternalistic approach, but I would deny it. With Friere I believe that in a real struggle between those with power and those without, not joining the struggle on the side of the powerless means abandoning them to defeat. Unlike Friere, perhaps, I don't believe that the only kind of relationship possible between those with power and those without is conflict.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (from Information Week Daily) and C.P. Snow (from A Word a Day)

"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth." - Franklin D Roosevelt

Very true, even when the lie is repeated by many different people, even in different times and places. See below.



"When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion." - C.P. Snow, scientist and writer (1905-1980)

I feel that I am on treading on dangerous ground in criticizing this well-known quote from an important and influential critic of modern thought, but this is exactly the kind of glib authoritative statement that I find very aggravating. People read it and simply accept it without thinking. It sounds so “right.” It sounds right because it fits in so well to contemporary currents of thought, not because it is true. The way it is expressed, that there has been more of one kind of event than of another, sounds like someone has made a careful study, added up the events, and compared the resulting sums. But even though Snow was considered a scientist himself, this is surely not the case. Such a study would probably be impossible to conduct. Among the many problems one would encounter in preparing for such a study would be defining “hideous crimes,” “obedience,” and “rebellion” as they apply to the events of history. It is no doubt true that many evil deeds have been done by people who claimed to be following orders or obeying the dictates of law or tradition, but it is also certainly true that much evil has been done by those trying to overturn the status quo, whatever that was at the time. (One thinks readily of Lenin and Mao Tse Tung.) It may even be true that more crimes have been committed by the former group than the latter, given that there have probably been more of the former than the latter. But this does not mean that obedience is bad and rebellion good, or that conservatives are necessarily more dangerous than progressives.