#neutrality

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. ↗

— Elie Wiesel

#helps #must #neutrality #never #oppressor

Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence. ↗

— Louis D. Brandeis

#neutrality #sin #than #times

The only way to be true to our American tradition is to maintain absolute governmental neutrality regarding religious beliefs and practices. ↗

— Bill Bradley

#american #american tradition #be true #beliefs #governmental

The government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion. ↗

— John Paul Stevens

#course #government #must #neutrality #pursue

For her, sex was nothing more than an itch. And this phsychological and physiological neutrality of hers at once relieved her of so many human emotions and sentiments and desires. Sexual neutrality was the essence of coldness in an individual. It was a great and wonderful thing to be born with. ↗

— Ian Fleming

#desire #emotion #neutrality #sentiment #sex

The state does not oppose the freedom of people to express their particular cultural attachments, but nor does it nurture such expression—rather [...] it responds with 'benign neglect' [....] The members of ethnic and national groups are protected against discrimination and prejudice, and they are free to maintain whatever part of their ethnic heritage or identity they wish, consistent with the rights of others. But their efforts are purely private, and it is not the place of public agencies to attach legal identities or disabilities to cultural membership or ethnic identity. This separation of state and ethnicity precludes any legal or governmental recognition of ethnic groups, or any use of ethnic criteria in the distribution of rights, resources, and duties. ↗

— Will Kymlicka

#discrimination #ethnicity #individuals #liberalism #liberties

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. ↗

— Dante Alighieri

#crisis #darkest #hell #maintain #moral

Neutrality is a negative word. It does not express what America ought to feel. We are not trying to keep out of trouble; we are trying to preserve the foundations on which peace may be rebuilt. ↗

— Woodrow Wilson

#does #express #feel #foundations #keep

Why should we cherish “objectivity”, as if ideas were innocent, as if they don’t serve one interest or another? Surely, we want to be objective if that means telling the truth as we see it, not concealing information that may be embarrassing to our point of view. But we don’t want to be objective if it means pretending that ideas don’t play a part in the social struggles of our time, that we don’t take sides in those struggles. Indeed, it is impossible to be neutral. In a world already moving in certain directions, where wealth and power are already distributed in certain ways, neutrality means accepting the way things are now. It is a world of clashing interests – war against peace, nationalism against internationalism, equality against greed, and democracy against elitism – and it seems to me both impossible and undesirable to be neutral in those conflicts. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#objectivity #equality

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. ↗

— Dante Alighieri

#hell #morality #neutrality #hell