#ogres

Conservatives and those on the right are usually willing to settle for thinking themselves correct on political issues; those on the left have always needed to feel not so much that they are correct but that they are also good. Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, sentimental, foolish, a dope; disagree with someone one the left and he is more likely to think you selfish, cold-hearted, a sellout, evil-in league with the devil, he might say, if he didn't think religious terminology too coarse for our secular age. To this day one will hear of people who fell for Communism in a big way let off the hook because they were sincere; if one's heart is in the right place, nothing else matters, even if one's naive opinions made it easier for tyrants to murder millions. ↗

— Joseph Epstein

#conservatives #government #leftism #liberalism #liberals

The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do not repeat themselves. It isn’t absurd, e.g., to believe that the age of science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity; that the idea of great progress is delusion, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known; that there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that mankind, in seeking it, is falling into a trap. It is by no means obvious that this is not how things are. ↗

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

#history #progress #age

...apart from the seemingly magical internet, life in broad material terms isn't so different from what it was in 1953...The wonders portrayed in THE JETSONS, the space-age television cartoon from the 1960s, have not come to pass...Life is better and we have more stuff, but the pace of change has slowed down compared to what people saw two or three generations ago. ↗

— Tyler Cowen

#technological-progress #age

Progress is hard on history. ↗

— Justina Chen

#progress #beauty

We should strive to welcome change and challenges, because they are what help us grow. With out them we grow weak like the Eloi in comfort and security. We need to constantly be challenging ourselves in order to strengthen our character and increase our intelligence. ↗

— H.G. Wells

#progress #change

I'm not ready to give you a clear answer on whether electoral politics holds any particular hope for progressives. It would mean that nothing I did ever mattered. ↗

— Tom Hayden

#any #clear #did #electoral #ever

I think that people, despite my law enforcement background, view me as taking these consistently progressive stands, and I think that, philosophically, there is a desire to get at that person. But I think the stands I have taken are totally consistent with a person who is looking at things realistically, factually. ↗

— Eric Holder

#consistent #consistently #desire #despite #enforcement

We feel good about our running backs as we have them right now, and we will continue to see how they progress. ↗

— Jerry Jones

#backs #continue #feel #feel good #good

In my case Pilgrim's Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am. ↗

— Carl Jung

#case #climb #consisted #could #down

There are three critical ingredients to democratic renewal and progressive change in America: good public policy, grassroots organizing and electoral politics. ↗

— Paul Wellstone

#change #critical #democratic #electoral #good