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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #cat
We are not consumers. For most of humanity’s existence, we were makers, not consumers: we made our clothes, shelter, and education, we hunted and gathered our food. We are not addicts. “I propose that most addictions come from our surrendering our real powers, that is, our powers of creativity.” We are not passive couch potatoes either. “It is not the essence of humans to be passive. We are players. We are actors on many stages…. We are curious, we are yearning to wonder, we are longing to be amazed… to be excited, to be enthusiastic, to be expressive. In short to be alive.” We are also not cogs in a machine. To be so would be to give up our personal freedoms so as to not upset The Machine, whatever that machine is. Creativity keeps us creating the life we wish to live and advancing humanity’s purpose as well. ↗
#addictions #consumer-culture #consumerism #creation #creativity
May there not be some subconscious jealousy that motivates our reactions to other people? Why do we eat chocolate sundaes when we know that we should reduce? Are we free from the influence of parental training? The Scriptures say, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Parental training and all education proceed on the assumption that the will is not free, but can be trained, motivated, and directed. Finally, beyond both physiology and psychology there is God. Can we be sure that he is not directing our choices? Do we know that we are free from his grace? The Psalm says, "Blessed is the man whom you choose and cause to approach you." Is it certain that God has not caused us to choose to approach him? Can we set a limit to God's power? Can we tell how far it extends and just where it ends? Are we outside his control? ↗
It seems logical to suppose that history's pattern reflects innate differences among people themselves. Of course, we're taught that it's not polite to say so in public. We see in our daily lives that some of the conquered peoples continue to form an underclass, centuries after the conquests or slave imports took place. We're told that this too is to be attributed not to any biological shortcomings but to social disadvantages and limited opportunities. Nevertheless, we have to wonder. We keep seeing all those glaring, persistent differences in peoples' status. We're assured that the seemingly transparent biological explanation for the world's inequalities as of A.D. 1500 is wrong, but we're not told what the correct explanation is. Until we have some convincing, detailed, agreed-upon explanation for the broad pattern of history, most people will continue to suspect that the racist biological explanation is correct after all. That seems to me the strongest argument for writing this book. ↗
I reject animal welfare reform and single-issue campaigns because they are not only inconsistent with the claims of justice that we should be making if we really believe that animal exploitation is wrong, but because these approaches cannot work as a practical matter. Animals are property and it costs money to protect their interests; therefore, the level of protection accorded to animal interests will always be low and animals will, under the best of circumstances, still be treated in ways that would constitute torture if applied to humans. By endorsing welfare reforms that supposedly make exploitation more “compassionate” or single-issue campaigns that falsely suggest that there is a coherent moral distinction between meat and dairy or between fur and wool or between steak and foie gras, we betray the principle of justice that says that all sentient beings are equal for purposes of not being used exclusively as human resources. And, on a practical level, we do nothing more than make people feel better about animal exploitation. I maintain that those who believe that animals are members of the moral community should, instead, make clear that veganism, defined as not eating, wearing, or using animals, is the non-negotiable, unequivocal moral baseline and should put their labor and resources into grassroots vegan education that may take a myriad of creative forms but should never involve violence. ↗
#animal-welfare #ethical-vegan #ethical-veganism #exploitation #francione
そして「グローバルウェブ」を牽引する第三要素は、シリコンバレー発グローバルの思想基盤とも言えるカリフォルニアン・イデオロギーと呼ばれるものです。テクノロジーこそが「反中央・反権威」の個をエンパワーするもので、その力を起爆剤に現状を打破しフロンティアを切りひらこうという、シリコンバレーの思想的ルーツとも言える考え方です。 個人の自由を最大限尊重すべきだとし、国家や体制に縛られるのを嫌うリバタリアン的な考え方と、カリフォルニア的なテクノロジー至上主義（個の力を強めるパーソナル・テクノロジーや管理されないネットの自由を信奉する）が結びついた考え方とも言えます。 「反中央・反権威」ではあるけれど資本主義とも深く結びつき、根本的な社会変革や革命を目指す思想ではありません。パーソナル・テクノロジー時代、ウェブ時代の時代精神として、アメリカ西海岸を発祥に、そこを超えて全世界に信奉者を集めるようになった考え方です。[43〜44ページ] ↗
