Previous Quotes - page 23
Why do I say this? It would be very unreasonable to understand the sad legacy of the last forty years as something alien, which some distant relative bequeathed to us. On the contrary, we have to accept this legacy as a sin we committed against ourselves. If we accept it as such, we will understand that it is up to us all, and up to us alone to do something about it. We cannot blame the previous rulers for everything, not only because it would be untrue, but also because it would blunt the duty that each of us faces today: namely, the obligation to act independently, freely, reasonably and quickly. Let us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best parliament and the best president, cannot achieve much on their own. And it would be wrong to expect a general remedy from them alone. Freedom and democracy include participation and therefore responsibility from us all.
Václav Havel
Nevertheless, as readers familiar with Mr. Lerner's previous works know, the range of his interests is amazing. In this book he comments on such diverse matters as President Truman's handling of the 1946 railroad strike..., Charlie Chaplin's superb ability as a mime, H. G. Wells's imaginative writing, Palestine, the cold war, Trotsky and Stalin, the evil of the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crowism, the 1948 political conventions, and the management of the Brooklyn Dodgers. In all of these and the many other pieces which make up the book the Enemy is always Status Quo.
Max Lerner
Descartes, I think, broke with this when he said, "To accede to truth, it suffices that I be any subject that can see what is evident." Evidence is substituted for ascesis at the point where the relationship to the self intersects the relationship to others and the world. The relationship to the self no longer needs to be ascetic to get into relation to the truth. It suffices that the relationship to the self reveals to me the obvious truth of what I see for me to apprehend the truth definitively. Thus, I can be immoral and know the truth. I believe this is an idea that, more or less explicitly, was rejected by all previous culture. Before Descartes, one could not be impure, immoral, and know the truth. With Descartes, direct evidence is enough. After Descartes, we have a nonascetic subject of knowledge. This change makes possible the institutionalization of modern science.
René Descartes