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Tag:social-changeClear

It is not given to us to know which acts or words will prove significant in the long future, but every act upon a right principle, whether it produce fruit immediately or not, will prove a center of re-organization of the whole social fabric.

— John Morley, On Compromise (1874)
1mo ago

It is not the conscious innovations of men of learning or genius that really transform a civilization: it is the unconscious innovations of the anonymous multitude.

3mo ago
themarginalian.org
What Makes a Person: The Seven Layers of Selfhood in Literature and Life

Characters formed within one society and living in circumstances where their dispositions are no longer needed — characters in time of great social change — are likely to be tragic. Their virtues lie useless or even foiled; they are no longer recognized for what they are; their motives and actions are misunderstood. The magnanimous man in a petty bourgeois society is seen as a vain fool; the energetic and industrious man in a society that prizes elegance above energy is seen as a bustling boor; the meditative person in an expansive society is seen as melancholic.

4mo ago

We accept the verdict of the past until the need of the present voices a demand for change; and even then we rarely have the courage to deny that the past was right, we merely claim that it was right for another age.

5mo ago

We accept the verdict of the past until the need of the present voices a demand to the contrary. But when a considerable number of people shall say they do not believe in the verdict of the past, we have reached a time of change.

5mo ago
noahpinion.blog
Yes, assimilation is good

In the past, showing that you were a good American — waving the flag, joining the army, speaking perfect English, and so on — was good enough to reassure most conservatives that you weren't an invader bent on overthrowing America's culture and replacing it with something alien. Nowadays, that's not enough.

6mo ago

We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

7mo ago

Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.

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