Politics Of Inevitability Quotes

The politics of inevitability is an intellectual coma we put ourselves in. ~ Timothy Snyder

We allowed ourselves to accept the politics of inevitability, the sense that history could move in only one direction: toward liberal democracy...We imbibed the myth of an "end of history". In doing so, we lowered our defences, constrained our imagination, and opened the way for precisely the kinds of regimes we told ourselves could never return. ~ Timothy Snyder

The second antihistorical way of considering the past is the politics of eternity. Like the politics of inevitability, the politics of eternity performs a masquerade of history, though a different one. It is concerned with the past, but in a self-absorbed way, free of any real concerns with facts. Its mood is a longing for past moments that never really happened during epochs that were, in fact, disastrous. Eternity politicians bring us the past as a vast misty courtyard if illegible monuments to national victimhood, all of them equally distant from the present, all of them equally accessible for manipulation. Every reference to the past seems to involve an attack by some external enemy upon the purity of the nation. ~ Timothy Snyder

Inevitability and eternity have specific propaganda styles. Inevitability politicians spin facts into a web of well-being. Eternity politicians suppress facts in order to dismiss the reality that people are freer and richer in other countries, and the idea that reforms could be formulated on the basis of knowledge. ~ Timothy Snyder

The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years. ~ Thomas Hardy

The ideological blackmail that has been in place since the original Live Aid concerts in 1985 has insisted that 'caring individuals' could end famine directly, without the need for any kind of political solution or systemic reorganization. It is necessary to act straight away, we were told; politics has to be suspended in the name of ethical immediacy. Bono's Product Red brand wanted to dispense even with the philanthropic intermediary. 'Philanthropy is like hippy music, holding hands', Bono proclaimed. 'Red is more like punk rock, hip hop, this should feel like hard commerce'. The point was not to offer an alternative to capitalism - on the contrary, Product Red's 'punk rock' or 'hip hop' character consisted in its 'realistic' acceptance that capitalism is the only game in town. No, the aim was only to ensure that some of the proceeds of particular transactions went to good causes. The fantasy being that western consumerism, far from being intrinsically implicated in systemic global inequalities, could itself solve them. All we have to do is buy the right products. ~ Mark Fisher

Now, the disposition to be conservative in respect of politics reflects a quite different view of the activity of governing. The man of this disposition understands it to be the business of a government not to inflame passion and give it new objects to feed upon, but to inject into the activities of already too passionate men an ingredient of moderation; to restrain, to deflate, to pacify and to reconcile; not to stoke the fires of desire, but to damp them down. And all this, not because passion is vice and moderation virtue, but because moderation is indispensable if passionate men are to escape being locked in an encounter of mutual frustration. ~ Michael Oakeshott

Love knows no religion, race or politics, for it rules the realm of the heart. The universe bends because of love and the earth kneels before it, for love is God. ~ Jeanne D'Aout

Politics was sort of a way of life in our family. ~ Ann McLane Kuster

What counts as religious or secular in any given context is a function of different configurations of power. The question then becomes why such essentialist constructions are so common. I argue that, in what are called "Western" societies, the attempt to create a transhistorical and transcultural concept of religion that is essentially prone to violence is one of the foundational legitimating myths of the liberal nation-state. The myth of religious violence helps to construct and marginalise a religious other, prone to fanaticism, to contrast with the rational, peace-keeping, secular subject. This myth can and is used in domestic politics to legitimate the marginalisation of certain types of practices and groups labeled religious, while underwriting the nation-state's monopoly on its citizens' willingness to sacrifice and kill. In foreign policy, the myth of religious violence serves to cast nonsecular social orders, especially Muslim societies, in the role of the villain. THEY have not yet learned to remove the dangerous influence of religion from political life. THEIR violence is therefore irrational and fanatical. OUR violence, being secular, is rational, peace making, and sometimes regrettably necessary to contain their violence. We find ourselves obliged to bomb them into liberal democracy. ~ William T. Cavanaugh

I tutored myself in the art of solemnity, kept my euphoria private, and adopted a serious demeanour in keeping with everyone else and the general ambience of the house. I continued my solitary daily walks about the estate, carefully choreographing scenes and conversations yet to happen. I returned to those places of our clandestine moments together, replaying them in my head, languishing in his treasured words . . . and sometimes adding more. I stood under frosty sunsets, my warm breath mingling with the cold evening air as I watched the silent flight of birds across the sky. And even in those twilit autumnal days I felt a light shine down upon my path. For though he was no longer at Deyning, no longer in England, the fact that he lived and breathed had already altered my vision; and nothing, not even a war, could quell my faith in the inevitability of his presence in my life. ~ Judith Kinghorn

I wonder if Communists occupied in producing plays are not safer than Communists starving to death. I have always felt that whatever your beliefs might be, if you could earn enough to keep body and soul together and had to be pretty busy doing that, you would not be very apt to have time to plot the overthrow of any existing government. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

I never start with a political point of view. I believe that your politics are emotionally and psychologically determined by your early experiences. ~ Bruce Springsteen

The invasion of Iraq was illegal from the start. ~ Walter Cronkite

Today's events are reminiscent of the Old Testament story of how the Israelites demanded a king over God's objection. They believed that a king would give them peace and security. The results proved otherwise. ~ Ron Paul

You are the TEACHER. Some people are so stuck on what you did in the past, that they don't realize that you forgave yourself, matured, and graduated from what happened.

Yet here they are stuck on that memory..wondering how you were able to move on. Time waits for no one and life keeps going.

When haters try to remind you of your past, starve their attention with silence..Just realize that you don't have time to supervise adults. You got things to do and individuals to mentor.

What was designed to crush you just strengthened your walk, put confidence in your talk, and encouraged you to be content with You.

Their presence or opinion is only entertainment in the bleachers, tolerated decorations on the wall, and the uncelebrated clown at your events.

Remember you are the teacher and they are the student...take charge of your classroom!! ~ Kendricks Fields

The belief in the inevitability of war is a self-fulfilling prophecy ... We need an alternative vision, to see the world as one, as interconnected. ~ Dennis Kucinich

That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something. ~ Meredith Monk

If I hadn't spent a big chunk of time in academia I might not have the depth of consciousness I do about ideas like that. I might think, for instance, that Freud was no big deal in terms of the shape of social organization then or now. I might think that the discourses of politics and law are real and stable and fair. ~ Lidia Yuknavitch

The ultimate aim of politics is not politics, but the activities which can be practised within the political framework of the State. Therefore an effective statement of these activities e.g. science , art , religion is in itself a declaration of ultimate aims around which the political means will crystallise ... a society with no values outside of politics is a machine carrying its human cargo, with no purpose in its institutions reflecting their care, eternal aspirations, loneliness, need for love . ~ Stephen Spender

What the Nazis themselves claimed to be their chief discovery - the role of the Jewish people in world politics - and their chief interest - persecution of Jews all over the world - have been regarded by public opinion as a pretext for winning the masses or an interesting device of demagogy. ~ Hannah Arendt

A dose of humility goes a long way in life and in politics. ~ Ron Fournier

The US has a vital interest in that area of the country. ~ Dan Quayle

There are two things that seem to be at the bottom of our constitutions; one is a continual tendency towards politics; the other is family pride; and it is strange how these two feelings run through all of us. ~ Henry Adams

Like the battleships of old, omnibus programs present too tempting a target, too easily destroyed by a single attack, to make it through a fight ... It is through incremental change after change, step after step, that a statesman of today can vindicate a bold vision. ~ Dick Morris

I think I passed up a lot of opportunities for love because I was too interested in identity politics. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand. ~ Karl Marx

Simple logic tells you that if somebody wants you dead you have one course of action: To get them deader sooner. ~ James Woods

The only type of innocent people who yell "WITCH HUNT" are the kind who are really guilty! ~ Ed Krassenstein

If their social institutions were abhorrent, their unwritten constitution bordered upon the absurd. The absolutist monarchs of the ancient kingdoms of Amara looked with detestation at the Shazarian constitutional monarchy. Yet this was no time to demonstrate loathing of the upstart nation; condescension could wait until after Sixto had been defeated. ~ A.H. Septimius

Well who can truly understand politics any more, ever since they all went professional it's all sort of blurred with the entertainments industry. ~ Steve Merrick

But the same "personal charm" that had propelled Taft to the presidency ultimately proved "dangerous" to him, Baker concluded. For far too long, his amiable nature had kept him from the rough-and-tumble of politics, from the need to fight for himself and his convictions. Had he come into the White House ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

Politics, of course, requires sweat, work, combat, and organization. But these should not be ugly words for and free people. ~ Nelson Rockefeller

The problem of media/politics is multifold. Many things are out of whack. ~ Robert Kane Pappas

From the earliest beginnings of Lyndon Johnson's political life - from his days at college when he had captured control of campus politics - his tactics had consistently revealed a pragmatism and a cynicism that had no discernible limits. ~ Robert A. Caro

When you were dying, Edward quickly discovered, people would let you do pretty much whatever you wanted. So he made some new unofficial decrees:
1. The king was allowed to sleep in as long as he wished.
2. The king no longer had to wear seven layers of elaborate, jewel-encrusted clothing. Or silly hats with feathers. Or pants that resembled pumpkins. Or tights. From now on, unless it was a special occasion, he was fine in just a simple shirt and trousers.
3. Dessert was to be served first. Blackberry pie, preferably. With whipped cream.
4. The king would no longer be taking part in any more dreary studies. His fine tutors had filled his head with enough history, politics and philosophy to last him two lifetimes, and as he was unlikely to get even half of one lifetime, there was no need for study. No more lessons, he decided. No more books. No more tutors' dirty looks.
5. The king was now going to reside in the top of the southeast turret, where he could sit in the window ledge and gaze out at the river for as long as he liked.
6. No one at court would be allowed to say the following words or phrases: affliction, illness,
malady, sickness, disease, disorder, ailment, infirmity, convalescence, indisposition, malaise,
plight, plague, poor health, failing health, what's going around, or your condition. Most of all, no one was allowed to say the word dying.
And finally (and perhaps most importantly, for the sake of our story)
7. ~ Cynthia Hand

A better politics is one where we appeal to each other's basic decency instead of our basest fears. ~ Barack Obama

... an impression of inescapable noise or acute disorder, a rush of adrenalin, sensations of alarm, a sense of unbalance or chaos, residual feeling of nausea and anxiety. These are the forms of bodily distress that occur when one's ingrained, taken-for-granted sense of how certain things are - and thus presumably will be and in some sense should be - is suddenly or insistently confronted by something very much at odds with it. ~ Barbara Herrnstein Smith

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How does one undermine the framework of racial reasoning? By dismantling each pillar slowly and systematically. The fundamental aim of this undermining and dismantling is to replace racial reasoning with moral reasoning, to understand the black freedom struggle not as an affair of skin pigmentation and racial phenotype but rather as a matter of ethical principles and wise politics, and to combat the black nationalist attempt to subordinate the issues and interests of black women by linking mature black self-love and self-respect to egalitarian relations within and outside black communities. The failure of nerve of black leadership is its refusal to undermine and dismantle the framework of racial reasoning. ~ Cornel West

The art of governing mankind by deceiving them. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

Cyborgs are not reverent; they do not re-member the cosmos. They are wary of holism, but needy for connection- they seem to have a natural feel for united front politics, but without the vanguard party. The main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. ~ Donna J. Haraway

She had quoted a Bene Gesserit proverb to him: "When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late." Paul ~ Frank Herbert

If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. ~ Ray Bradbury

I'm Nancy Pelosi, but my grandchildren call me Mimi. For me, politics is an extension of my role as a mother and a grandmother. For the Democratic women of the House, our work is not about the next election, but rather the next generation. ~ Nancy Pelosi

I know how easy it is to sound like a corny version of Noam Chomsky when talking about something like this, but in a country where millions of dollars are spent on nuclear weapons, corporate welfare, and many ridiculous things, doesn't it just make sense to take care of people first? As soon as we can make the South Bronx, Compton, Taos, and Astoria look like Beverly Hills I'll have no problem watching a guy orbit Mars. ~ Dito Montiel

Did you know that the United States is ranked fiftieth in the world in life expectancy? And the forty-nine loser countries where they live longer than us...they live shackled to the tyranny of nonprofit health care. Here in America, you're not coughing up blood, little Bobby, you're coughing up freedom! ~ Bill Maher

In spite of the fundamental importance of economic facts in determining politics and beliefs of an age or nation, I do not think that non-economic factors can be neglected without risks of error which may be fatal in practice. ~ Bertrand Russell

Frank thought. Each time he became someone else's spy it got easier. The ideological virgin usually finds his first time an excruciating experience, just as an amateur hiker, used to the straight-and-narrow freeway of nine-to-five reliability, looks askance at the boulder-strewn path of mercenary betrayal, winding on up into the clouds and down into terrible moraines. But after the first time, the pain and intimacy and guilt becomes a habit subject to check listed procedures; and to the professional, the politically promiscuous soul, all that matters is the craft itself, the right skitter and stab and swing of the hips, so that in the end you can laugh at the inevitability of your own violent death. Frank was now almost at that stage. ~ William T. Vollmann