#dissident

I am often described to my irritation as a 'contrarian' and even had the title inflicted on me by the publisher of one of my early books. (At least on that occasion I lived up to the title by ridiculing the word in my introduction to the book's first chapter.) It is actually a pity that our culture doesn't have a good vernacular word for an oppositionist or even for someone who tries to do his own thinking: the word 'dissident' can't be self-conferred because it is really a title of honor that has to be won or earned, while terms like 'gadfly' or 'maverick' are somehow trivial and condescending as well as over-full of self-regard. And I've lost count of the number of memoirs by old comrades or ex-comrades that have titles like 'Against the Stream,' 'Against the Current,' 'Minority of One,' 'Breaking Ranks' and so forth—all of them lending point to Harold Rosenberg's withering remark about 'the herd of independent minds.' Even when I was quite young I disliked being called a 'rebel': it seemed to make the patronizing suggestion that 'questioning authority' was part of a 'phase' through which I would naturally go. On the contrary, I was a relatively well-behaved and well-mannered boy, and chose my battles with some deliberation rather than just thinking with my hormones. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#contrarianism #dissent #dissidents #free-thought #harold-rosenberg

Our focus needs to be on freeing dissidents and continuing to support the opposition movement within Cuba - not rewarding Castro and subsidizing and strengthening his totalitarian regime. ↗

— Mel Martinez

#continuing #cuba #dissidents #focus #freeing

You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists. ↗

— Abbie Hoffman

#conformists #democracy #dissidents #freedom #gives

We don't have sources who are dissidents on other sources. Should they come forward, that would be a tricky situation for us. But we're presumably acting in such a way that people feel morally compelled to continue our mission, not to screw it up. ↗

— Julian Assange

#come #compelled #continue #dissidents #feel

There was no doubt that sooner or later we will fight. But we will fight not in the way of the dissidents' protests. We understood that we needed to be as professional as possible. ↗

— Anatoly Chubais

#doubt #fight #later #needed #no doubt