When we live the 21st-century good life, almost every aspect of it is predicated on not looking at the implications of what we're up to. Happiness at this point has a lot to do with not looking, so you don't feel complicit in some vast and awful enterprise.
Interpretation
Happiness may stem from ignoring the unpleasant realities of our modern lives.
Paolo Bacigalupi's quote explores the notion that contemporary happiness is often based on willful ignorance of the moral and ethical implications of our lifestyles. In the pursuit of what is often called the 'good life,' individuals may choose to overlook the broader consequences of their actions, thereby finding temporary joy while remaining unaware of their complicity in larger societal issues.
In practice
This quote can be used in a debate about consumer culture and environmental responsibility.
All the definitions people want to put on you in terms of what kind of writer you are come with hidden meanings. If you're writing science fiction, you're writing rocket ships. If you write dystopian fiction, it's inequity where The Man must be fought.
PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.
If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control.
I am often asked the question How can the masses permit themselves to be exploited by the few. The answer is By being persuaded to identify with them.
Look at me as many times as you wish, _x000D_ but you won’t get to know me! _x000D_ Since you have last seen me, _x000D_ I’ve changed a hundred times!
Man, by his very nature, tends to give himself an explanation of the world into which he is born. And this is what distinguishes him from the other species. Every individual, even the least intelligent, the lowest of outcasts, from childhood on gives himself some explanation of the world. And with it he manages to live. And without it, he would sink into madness.
The grand delusion of contemporary liberals is that they have both the right and the ability to move their fellow creatures around like blocks of wood - and that the end results will be no different than if people had voluntarily chosen the same action
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