#cs

I take criticism so seriously as to believe that, even in the midst of a battle in which one is unmistakably on one side against another, there should be criticism, because there must be critical consciousness if there are to be issues, problems, values, even lives to be fought for... Criticism must think of itself as life-enhancing and constitutively opposed to every form of tyranny, domination, and abuse; its social goals are noncoercive knowledge produced in the interests of human freedom. ↗

— Edward W. Said

#edward-said #freedom #politics #freedom

...when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases. ↗

— Robert Anton Wilson

#philosophy #brain

Just take the weapon you hold in your hand and drive it through his heart," Valentine's voice was soft. "One simple motion. Nothing you haven't done before." Jace met his father's stare with a level gaze. "I saw Agramon," he said. "It had your face." "You saw Agramon?" The Soul-Sword glittered as Valentine moved toward his son. "And you lived?" "I killed it." "You killed the Demon of Fear, but you won't kill a single vampire, not even at my order?" Jace stood watching Valentine without expression. "He's a vampire, that's true," he said. "But his name is Simon. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#ethics #fear #jace-wayland #loyalty #simon-lewis

The mistake you make, don't you see,is in thinking one can live in a corrupt society without being corrupt oneself. After all, what do you achieve by refusing to make money? You're trying to behave as though one could stand right outside our economic system. But one can't. One's got to change the system, or one changes nothing. One can't put things right in a hole-and-corner way, if you take my meaning. ↗

— George Orwell

#economics-society #money #society #system #change

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#uncertainty #law

Make ethical choices in what we buy, do, and watch. In a consumer-driven society our individual choices, used collectively for the good of animals and nature, can change the world faster than laws. ↗

— Marc Bekoff

#ethics #law #shop #vegan #change

War is politics for everyone but the warrior. ↗

— Tiffany Madison

#iraq-war #political-commentary #politics #war #war-on-terror

What sense would it make to classify a man as handicapped because he is in a wheelchair today, if he is expected to be walking again in a month, and competing in track meets before the year is out? Yet Americans are generally given 'class' labels on the basis of their transient location in the income stream. If most Americans do not stay in the same broad income bracket for even a decade, their repeatedly changing 'class' makes class itself a nebulous concept. Yet the intelligentsia are habituated, if not addicted, to seeing the world in class terms. ↗

— Thomas Sowell

#class-warfare #politics #poverty #change

Ethically they had arrived at the conclusion that man's supremacy over lower animals meant not that the former should prey upon the latter, but that the higher should protect the lower, and that there should be mutual aid between the two as between man and man. They had also brought out the truth that man eats not for enjoyment but to live. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#ethics

Too many people get credit for being good, when they are only being passive. They are too often praised for being broadminded when they are so broadminded they can never make up their minds about anything. ↗

— Fulton J. Sheen

#christianity #ethics #morality #philosophy #spirituality