Quote for Tuesday

"To 'provincialize' Europe was precisely to find out how and in what sense European ideas that were universal were also, at one and the same time, drawn from very particular intellectual and historical traditions that could not claim any universal validity. It was to ask a question about how thought was related to place. Can thought transcend places of their origin? Or do places leave their imprint on thought in such a way as to call into question the idea of purely abstract categories?"

Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (2007 edition; xiii)

A Quote for Tuesday

I'm bringing back David Sehat's old feature--"A Quote for Tuesday"--at least for today.

"Yes, racism exists, as a conceptual condensation of practices and ideas that reproduce, or seek to reproduce, hierarchy along lines defined by race. Apostles of antiracism frequently can’t hear this sort of statement, because in their exceedingly simplistic version of the nexus of race and injustice there can be only the Manichean dichotomy of those who admit racism’s existence and those who deny it. There can be only Todd Gitlin (the sociologist and former SDS leader who has become, both fairly and as caricature, the symbol of a “class-first” line) and their own heroic, truth-telling selves, and whoever is not the latter must be the former. Thus the logic of straining to assign guilt by association substitutes for argument.

My position is—and I can’t count the number of times I’ve said this bluntly, yet to no avail, in response to those in blissful thrall of the comforting Manicheanism—that of course racism persists, in all the disparate, often unrelated kinds of social relations and “attitudes” that are characteristically lumped together under that rubric, but from the standpoint of trying to figure out how to combat even what most of us would agree is racial inequality and injustice, that acknowledgement and $2.25 will get me a ride on the subway. It doesn’t lend itself to any particular action except more taxonomic argument about what counts as racism."

Adolph Reed, Jr., "The Limits of Antiracism," Left Business Observer

A Quote for Tuesday

"Pieces of the old and new social paradigms filled the air, full of promise and full of danger. They formed the fragments out of which the new century's debates would be constructed. The disaggregation of the block categories of mid-century had run its course. The age of fracture had permanently altered the play of argument and ideas. The pieces would have to be reassembled on different frames, the tensions between self and society resolved anew. But how that would be done, amid the anger and the confusion, the liberations and the anxieties, still hung in the balance."

Daniel T. Rodgers, Age of Fracture (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010), 271.

A Quote for Tuesday

"Pieces of the old and new social paradigms filled the air, full of promise and full of danger. They formed the fragments out of which the new century's debates would be constructed. The disaggregation of the block categories of mid-century had run its course. The age of fracture had permanently altered the play of argument and ideas. The pieces would have to be reassembled on different frames, the tensions between self and society resolved anew. But how that would be done, amid the anger and the confusion, the liberations and the anxieties, still hung in the balance."

Daniel T. Rodgers, Age of Fracture (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010), 271.

A Quote for Tuesday

"We tell ourself stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children to sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of accidie, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be 'interesting' to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes some difference whether the naked woman is about to commit a mortal sin or is about to register a political protest or is about it be, the Aristophanic view, snatched back to human condition by the fireman in priest's clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling at the telephoto lens. We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line on disparate images, by the 'ideas' which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience."

Joan Didion, "The White Album," in The White Album (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 11.

A Quote for Tuesday

"We tell ourself stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children to sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of accidie, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be 'interesting' to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes some difference whether the naked woman is about to commit a mortal sin or is about to register a political protest or is about it be, the Aristophanic view, snatched back to human condition by the fireman in priest's clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling at the telephoto lens. We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line on disparate images, by the 'ideas' which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience."

Joan Didion, "The White Album," in The White Album (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 11.

A Quote for Tuesday

Perhaps it is not my way to read much, or diverse things: a reading room makes me sick. Nor is it my way to love much, or diverse things. Caution, even hostility against new books comes closer to my instincts than 'tolerance,' 'largeur du coeur,' and other 'neighbor love.'"

Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann (1908; New York, Vintage, 1967), 243.

A Quote for Tuesday

Perhaps it is not my way to read much, or diverse things: a reading room makes me sick. Nor is it my way to love much, or diverse things. Caution, even hostility against new books comes closer to my instincts than 'tolerance,' 'largeur du coeur,' and other 'neighbor love.'"

Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann (1908; New York, Vintage, 1967), 243.

A Quote for Tuesday

"In my case, every kind of reading belongs among my recreations--hence among things that liberate me from myself, that allow me to walk about in strange sciences and souls--that I no longer take seriously. Reading is precisely my recreation from my own seriousness. During periods when I am hard at work you will not find me surrounded by books: I'd beware of letting anyone near me talk, much less think. And that is what reading would mean."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann (1908; New York: Vintage, 1967), 242.

A Quote for Tuesday

"In my case, every kind of reading belongs among my recreations--hence among things that liberate me from myself, that allow me to walk about in strange sciences and souls--that I no longer take seriously. Reading is precisely my recreation from my own seriousness. During periods when I am hard at work you will not find me surrounded by books: I'd beware of letting anyone near me talk, much less think. And that is what reading would mean."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann (1908; New York: Vintage, 1967), 242.

A Quote for Tuesday

"'Do you know that your case is going badly?' asked the priest. 'At first I thought it must turn out well,' said K., 'but now I frequently have my doubts. I don't know how it will end. Do you?' 'No,' said the priest, 'but I fear it will end badly. You are held to be guilty. Your case will perhaps never get beyond a lower Court. Your guilt is supposed, for the present, at least, to be proved.' 'But I am not guilty,' said K.; 'it's a mistake. And, if it comes to that, how can any man be called guilty? We are all simply men here, one as much as the other.' 'That is true,' said the priest, 'but that's how all guilty men talk."

Franz Kafka, The Trial, trans. Willa and Edwin Muir (1925; New York: Schocken, 1992), 210.

A Quote for Tuesday

"'Do you know that your case is going badly?' asked the priest. 'At first I thought it must turn out well,' said K., 'but now I frequently have my doubts. I don't know how it will end. Do you?' 'No,' said the priest, 'but I fear it will end badly. You are held to be guilty. Your case will perhaps never get beyond a lower Court. Your guilt is supposed, for the present, at least, to be proved.' 'But I am not guilty,' said K.; 'it's a mistake. And, if it comes to that, how can any man be called guilty? We are all simply men here, one as much as the other.' 'That is true,' said the priest, 'but that's how all guilty men talk."

Franz Kafka, The Trial, trans. Willa and Edwin Muir (1925; New York: Schocken, 1992), 210.

A Quote for Tuesday

"I think Emerson wrote somewhere that a library is a kind of magic cavern which is full of dead men. And those dead men can be reborn, can be brought to life when you open their pages."

Jorge Luis Borges, This Craft of Verse (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 3.

A Quote for Tuesday

"I think Emerson wrote somewhere that a library is a kind of magic cavern which is full of dead men. And those dead men can be reborn, can be brought to life when you open their pages."

Jorge Luis Borges, This Craft of Verse (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 3.

A Quote for Tuesday

"Scholars who at bottom do little nowadays but thumb books . . . ultimately lose entirely their capacity to think for themselves. When they don't thumb, they don't think. They respond to a stimulus (a thought they have read) whenever they think--in the end, they do nothing but react. Scholars spend all of their energies on saying Yes and No, on criticism of what others have thought--they themselves no longer think."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann (1908; New York: Vintage, 1967), 253.

A Quote for Tuesday

"Scholars who at bottom do little nowadays but thumb books . . . ultimately lose entirely their capacity to think for themselves. When they don't thumb, they don't think. They respond to a stimulus (a thought they have read) whenever they think--in the end, they do nothing but react. Scholars spend all of their energies on saying Yes and No, on criticism of what others have thought--they themselves no longer think."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann (1908; New York: Vintage, 1967), 253.

A Quote for Tuesday

"'If you signify that you subscribe to the statement, which will have the status of a plea in mitigation, the Rector will be prepared to accept it in that spirit.'

'In what spirit?'

'A spirit of repentance.'

'Manas, we went through the repentance business yesterday. I told you what I thought. I won't do it. I appeared before an officially constituted tribunal, before a branch of the law. Before that secular tribunal I pleaded guilty, a secular plea. That plea should suffice. Repentance is neither here nor there. Repentance belongs to another world, to another universe of discourse.'

'You are confusing issues, David. You are not being instructed to repent. What goes on in your soul is dark to us, as members of what you call a secular tribunal, if not as fellow human beings. You are being asked to issue a statement.'"

J.M Coetzee, Disgrace (New York: Penguin, 1999), 57-58.

A Quote for Tuesday

"'If you signify that you subscribe to the statement, which will have the status of a plea in mitigation, the Rector will be prepared to accept it in that spirit.'

'In what spirit?'

'A spirit of repentance.'

'Manas, we went through the repentance business yesterday. I told you what I thought. I won't do it. I appeared before an officially constituted tribunal, before a branch of the law. Before that secular tribunal I pleaded guilty, a secular plea. That plea should suffice. Repentance is neither here nor there. Repentance belongs to another world, to another universe of discourse.'

'You are confusing issues, David. You are not being instructed to repent. What goes on in your soul is dark to us, as members of what you call a secular tribunal, if not as fellow human beings. You are being asked to issue a statement.'"

J.M Coetzee, Disgrace (New York: Penguin, 1999), 57-58.

Two Quotes for Tuesday

On existential authenticity:

"It is commonly assumed that no art or skill is required in order to be subjective. To be sure, every human being is a bit of a subject, in a sense. But now to strive to become what one already is: who would take the pains to waste his time on such a task, involving the greatest imaginable degree of resignation? Quite so. But for this reason alone it is a very difficult task, the most difficult of all tasks in fact, precisely because every human being has a strong natural bent and passion to become something more and different. . . . Why can we not remember to be human beings?"

Soren Kierkegaard writing as Johannes Climacus in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to "Philosophical Fragments" in A Kierkegaard Anthology, Robert Bretall ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946), 208, 199.


"At this point the real answer to the question, how one becomes what one is, can no longer be avoided. And thus I touch on the masterpiece of the art of self-preservation--of selfishness. . . . I cannot remember that I ever tried hard--no trace of struggle can be demonstrated in my life; I am the opposite of a heroic nature. 'Willing' something, 'striving' for something, envisaging a 'purpose,' a 'wish'--I know none of this from experience. At this very moment I still look upon my future--an ample future!--as upon calm seas: there is no ripple of desire. I do not want in the least that anything should become different than it is; I myself do not want to become different. . . . My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it--all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary--but love it. . . . in all seriousness: nobody before me knew the right way, the way up; it is only beginning with me that there are hopes again, tasks, ways that can be prescribed for culture--I am he that brings these glad tidings.--And thus I am also a destiny."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann (1908; New York: Vintage, 1967), 253, 255, 258, 315.

Two Quotes for Tuesday

On existential authenticity:

"It is commonly assumed that no art or skill is required in order to be subjective. To be sure, every human being is a bit of a subject, in a sense. But now to strive to become what one already is: who would take the pains to waste his time on such a task, involving the greatest imaginable degree of resignation? Quite so. But for this reason alone it is a very difficult task, the most difficult of all tasks in fact, precisely because every human being has a strong natural bent and passion to become something more and different. . . . Why can we not remember to be human beings?"

Soren Kierkegaard writing as Johannes Climacus in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to "Philosophical Fragments" in A Kierkegaard Anthology, Robert Bretall ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946), 208, 199.


"At this point the real answer to the question, how one becomes what one is, can no longer be avoided. And thus I touch on the masterpiece of the art of self-preservation--of selfishness. . . . I cannot remember that I ever tried hard--no trace of struggle can be demonstrated in my life; I am the opposite of a heroic nature. 'Willing' something, 'striving' for something, envisaging a 'purpose,' a 'wish'--I know none of this from experience. At this very moment I still look upon my future--an ample future!--as upon calm seas: there is no ripple of desire. I do not want in the least that anything should become different than it is; I myself do not want to become different. . . . My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it--all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary--but love it. . . . in all seriousness: nobody before me knew the right way, the way up; it is only beginning with me that there are hopes again, tasks, ways that can be prescribed for culture--I am he that brings these glad tidings.--And thus I am also a destiny."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann (1908; New York: Vintage, 1967), 253, 255, 258, 315.