Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters.
— Frederick Douglass, 1857
Sunday, June 22, 2008
4 comments:
Please pick a handle or moniker for your comment. It's much easier to address someone by a name or pseudonym than simply "hey you". I have the option of requiring a "hard" identity, but I don't want to turn that on... yet.
With few exceptions, I will not respond or reply to anonymous comments, and I may delete them. I keep a copy of all comments; if you want the text of your comment to repost with something vaguely resembling an identity, email me.
No spam, pr0n, commercial advertising, insanity, lies, repetition or off-topic comments. Creationists, Global Warming deniers, anti-vaxers, Randians, and Libertarians are automatically presumed to be idiots; Christians and Muslims might get the benefit of the doubt, if I'm in a good mood.
See the Debate Flowchart for some basic rules.
Sourced factual corrections are always published and acknowledged.
I will respond or not respond to comments as the mood takes me. See my latest comment policy for details. I am not a pseudonomous-American: my real name is Larry.
Comments may be moderated from time to time. When I do moderate comments, anonymous comments are far more likely to be rejected.
I've already answered some typical comments.
I have jqMath enabled for the blog. If you have a dollar sign (\$) in your comment, put a \\ in front of it: \\\$, unless you want to include a formula in your comment.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I guess this post is a filler, but since I come to this de novo I'll submit my first impression of the quote for your amusement:
ReplyDelete* That's me. I'm not an activist.
* Hm, that makes me feel a slacker.
* But then, I'm under no duress.
I suspect the more dire circumstances are, the less deprecation I'd offer, as I imagine anyone would.
Obviously, I consider my personal situation less than perfect, but I further consider it not worth the effort of agitation. No doubt others have different thresholds.
So, how profound is the sentiment? Well, it's clear it enjoins one to be an activist until such no longer leads to progress toward freedom... i.e., for a lifetime.
Not really my style.
I don't read it so much as a call for agitation. I read it more as an exhortation to understand that freedom means change, change always comes with some degree of chaos and difficulty.
ReplyDeleteHm.
ReplyDeleteWell, as I said, I've encountered this context-free. And perhaps your mind is more finely-tuned than mine? I tend to read things literally and thus simplistically.
Still, if it's a truism, then it's not all that profound, either. There's plenty of truisms to be expressed.
Anyway, hope you're enjoying your new digs, in this nice mild winter.
Don't over-think this too much: it's just a quotation I happened upon and liked.
ReplyDelete