From Noam Chomsky
Who always says it better than me…
“If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, etc., there’s a chance to contribute to the making of a better world. That’s your choice.”
Which bits of Chomsky did you like?
A lot of his online stuff can be found at ZNet.
He’s very interesting.
The quote centres on the importance of choice – I think that’s very important.
There’s more to Chomsky than that quote. If you ever wanted to find out what could be improved within society, he’s an excellent place to start.
I highly reccommend exploring his thoughts and ideas. Some of his ideas will provide epiphonous moments where you look up from the page and think to yourself “Of course. That’s how it works.” or “So that’s why that happened”. I find those moments exhilatrating and empowering.
But to return to the quote:
…a better world
What’s your vision of a better world? What is it like?
I don’t want to be drawn into a dinner party conversation here. People will form conclusions from what I have said and will say in future. Some of the conclusions will be right, some will be wrong – that’s the nature of the medium – but I don’t have the inclination to do anything about that for the world in general. I’ll deal with friends and co-workers first, and deal with the rest of the world if I ever get that right.
…dinner party conversation
I think it’s more important than that. These conversations revolve around our visions for the world and ourselves.
And just as a project will flounder with out a vision so to will a life.
My thoughts are, the more we discuss our visions, the clearer and more realistic they become. The clearer and more realistic they become, the more chance we have of achieving them.
That links should be:
http://www.maxwideman.com/musings/project_vision.htm
It’s a great site BTW.
I suggest that’s exactly what a dinner party conversation lets us do.