Forces Quotes - page 71
The difficulty with our bisexual construct is that it locates the origin and meaning of preference too much inside the lone individual and not enough in the social surround. The notion of sexual preference, with its linking conception "sex object choice," requires an individual difference psychology of choice and free will that may correspond to the reality of philosophers, but seldom does for ordinary mortals. Our sexual development is driven and regulated by extraordinary forces, intrinsic and extrinisic, which include our genes, hormones, early parental relationships, peer pressures, cultural training for categories and language, and out-and-out social sanctions and physical force. We seldom are free to choose freely, but entertain the enchantment that we can.
Gilbert Herdt
I see art-making, especially that which comes from the margins of the mainstream, as a site of resistance, a way of interrupting and intervening in those historical and cultural fields that continually exclude me, a sort of gathering of forces on the borders. For the dominant hegemonic stance that has worked to silence and subdue gender and ethnic difference has also silenced difference based on sexual preference.
Harmony Hammond
History has often showed us the strength of the forces that are unleashed by the yearning for freedom. It moved people to overcome their fears and openly confront dictators such as in East Germany and Eastern Europe about 22 years ago. [...] The yearning for freedom cannot be contained by walls for long. It was this yearning that brought down the Iron Curtain that divided Germany and Europe, and indeed the world, into two blocs.
Angela Merkel
The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products we are pushed, we are forced by what By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.
Erich Fromm
Inherent in human beings are possibilities which we now can't even entertain. Before the space launch, space travel to many of us was the stuff of fantasy, of science fiction. We know what it is to explore the limits of what we consider to be a human being, but if we were to transform our understanding of ourselves, if we were to transform what we knew a human being to be, new possibilities of expression would open. We could function in a more creative way. In a more humane way. In the past we were transformed by the thrust of evolution or by accidental forces. This time we should transform ourselves with a conscious, committed degree of self-awareness.
Werner Erhard
Tormented by conflicting feelings, I appealed to reason; and it is reason which, amid so many dogmatic contradictions, now forces the hypothesis upon me. A priori dogmatism, applying itself to God, has proved fruitless: who knows whither the hypothesis, in its turn, will lead us?
I will explain therefore how, studying in the silence of my heart, and far from every human consideration, the mystery of social revolutions, God, the great unknown, has become for me an hypothesis, - I mean a necessary dialectical tool.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Harmony thus appears as a temporary adjustment, established among all forces acting upon a given spot - a provisory adaptation; and that adjustment will only last under one condition: that of being continually modified; of representing every moment the resultant of all conflicting actions.
Peter Kropotkin
Under the leadership of their democratic governments, all the anti-Japanese people in the Liberated Areas of China are called upon to join organizations of workers, peasants, youth and women, and cultural, professional and other organizations, which will wholeheartedly perform various tasks in support of the armed forces. Those tasks are not limited to rallying the people to join the army, transporting grain for it, caring for soldiers' families and helping the troops in meeting their material needs. They also include mobilizing the guerrilla units, militia and self-defence corps to make widespread raids and lay land mines against the enemy, gather intelligence about him, comb out traitors and spies, transport and protect the wounded and take direct part in the army's operations.
Mao Zedong
What can we scientists do in this conflict? We can join the spiritual, religious, philosophical forces, which reject war on ethical grounds. We can even attack the ideological foundations of the conflict itself. For science is not only the basis of technology but also the material for a sound philosophy.
Max Born
