Random quotes I liked from my readings:
I have a need for the world to be as I do not feel that it is possible for it to be.
—Laura Sjoberg, “Failure and Critique in Critical Security Studies.” Security Dialogue, vol. 50, no. 1, SAGE Publications Ltd, Feb. 2019, pp. 77–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010618783393
Most money today is produced not directly by the state but by private banks — in the UK, for example, the figure is about 97% . . .[T]he topic of money creation through private banks . . . ‘has been a virtual taboo for the thousands of researchers of the world’s central banks during the past half century.’ . . . ‘[C]ursory observation suggests that credit creation or money creation are taboo words in the leading journals.’ As Vitor Constancio, vice president of the European Central Bank, pointed out in a 2017 speech, one reason dominant economic models couldn’t predict the crisis of 2007-08 was because they ‘ignored the fact that banks reate money by extending credit ex nihilo.’
—David Orrell. “The Value of Value: A Quantum Approach to Economics, Security and International Relations.” Security Dialogue, vol. 51, no. 5, Oct. 2020, pp. 482–498, doi:10.1177/0967010620901910.
In fact, Calcaterra goes so far as to say that our “vulnerability to pain and suffering” is (or should be) a “universal criterion” — even for a radical anti-universalist as Rorty.
—Viola, Tullio. “Contingency and Normativity. The Challenges of Richard Rorty.” The Pluralist, vol. 16, no. 3, Oct. 2021, pp. 126–30. Silverchair https://doi.org/10.5406/pluralist.16.3.0126
Thoreau asked: “Is there not a sort of blood when the conscience is wounded? Through this would a man’s real manhood and immortality flow our, and he bleeds to an everlasting death.”
—Alain Beauclair; Beneath the Ordinary: Toward a Deweyan Aesthetics of Place. The Pluralist 1 January 2021; 16 (3): 1–28. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/pluralist.16.3.0001
An Italian historian relates that, soon after the terrible eruption of Vesuvius destroyed the beautiful cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, a pillar was erected to indicate a limit beyond which for new houses and edifices should not be built, on pain of suffering the effects of another disaster. The following inscription was written on this pillar: Posteri, posteri vestra rex agitur (“Posterity, posterity, this is for your own good.”) The people did not heed this, and we find that upon them came more eruptions and new catastrophes.
Jose Maria Quijano Wallis, “Let This Be Our Last War”
The image of adolescence or “coming of age” . . . has been frequently used for the whole human project of the modern age . . . This was conceived as breaking free from dependence on nature through technological mastery of the natural world and as self-liberation from religious domination by assertion of independence from God . . . we could give [this account] the most generous . . . interpretation if we saw it in terms of an adolescent assertion of independence that has so far failed to mature into adult reappropriation of the relationships that have been repudiated. In appropriating freedom, modern humanity has not yet recognized that this very freedom is rooted in dependence . . . With the immaturity of an adolescent, modern humanity has absolutized its independence. Confusing belonging with dominion or ownership, it has failed to integrate the freedom it has asserted into new forms of belonging . . . As Nicholas Lash puts it, “It is surely time to learn the discipline of adulthood, the transcending of autonomy in community and finitude.”
—Quentin I T Genuis, A Genealogy of Autonomy: Freedom, Paternalism, and the Future of the Doctor–Patient Relationship, The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy: A Forum for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine, Volume 46, Issue 3, June 2021, Pages 330–349, https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhab004
That which endlessly modifies itself by its unforgettable incompleteness.
—Michel de Certeau’s definition of knowledge, as quoted in Arlette Farge’s Allure of the Archives. Yale University Press, 2013.
Quotations can often come to the writer’s aid. But here again, you must think about the way they are used, so that they do not become a crutch or a misleading means of substituting facts where reasoning is necessary. A quotation is never proof, and any historian knows that it is almost always possible to come up with a quotation that contradicts the one she has chosen. The quotation has so much charm that it can be difficult to resist. It is charming because it is different; it has the charm of aptness and exoticism, with the colorfulness of language from another era, and even the charm of self-avowal. But to quote is to implicitly admit that you cannot find better words or more pertinent ways of phrasing things than those already in the archive. Or, you might quote in an attempt to camouflage your own inability to analyze any further, hiding behind the appearance of plausibility, even truthfulness, that a quotation can confer.
In fact, the proper usage of quotations is similar to the inlaying of precious stones. A quotation truly takes on meaning and significance if it fills a role that nothing else could. The quotation has three principal functions. It can effectively introduce a new situation by the sheer abrupt force of its expression. In these cases, it works as a jolt to help push the story forward. Alternately, if the goal is to astonish the reader, a quotation can lead our unexpectedly, changing the focus and breaking through the predictable. This is the quotation as a rupture, which allows the historian to pivot away from herself, to rid herself of her learned academic habit of displayed the successes and failures of others. When used in this manner, the quotation interrupts the narrative. The words between quotation marks remind that we cannot actually remove ourselves from the universe of words in which human experience takes shape. And, of course, there is another function, less lofty and certainly somewhat lazier. A quote can give some respite from the tension of a text, providing a pause, even an intermission. Not because it simply adds text on top of text, or because it shows how “well” people said things back then, but because it can modulate the writing of the narrative with bursts of images, surprising the reader with the sudden appearance of other voices. Inside the text, the quote work as a stop. Like a rest in music, it allows the historian’s practiced and reasoned words to work differently around it. At the end of a sentence, paragraph, or chapter, it can build a silence around the suddenness of its appearance. This is as it should be.
—Arlette Farge’s Allure of the Archives. Yale University Press, 2013.
[Foucault] invites old speech to take the stage, to sound again, in hopes that it will disrupt his readers’ expectations. He hopes that estrangement will make obvious all that familiarity has concealed within their current language.
—Mark D. Jordan, “In Search of Foucault’s Last Words.” Boston Review https://bostonreview.net/articles/in-search-of-foucaults-last-words/. Accessed 1 Feb. 2022.