She always imagined that evil played out on a large canvas- wars, concentration camps, gas chambers, the partitioning of nations. Now she realized that evil had a domestic side, and its very banality protected it from exposure.
Interpretation
Evil exists not only in grand acts but also in everyday situations, often unnoticed.
This quote highlights the often-overlooked presence of evil in mundane, everyday life, contrasting it with the more overt manifestations such as war and genocide. It suggests that the ordinary nature of this domestic evil can make it more insidious, as it goes unrecognized and unchallenged, thereby perpetuating its existence and impact on society.
In practice
During a discussion on moral philosophy, to emphasize the subtle nature of evil in daily life.
What she had believed was indignation or rage or a deep intolerance for injustice came down to this: she was irreducibly in love with this bewitching planet, this thrilling life, this heartbreaking species she belonged to, with its capacity for stupefying destruction and breathtaking magnanimity.
The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.
I was never an assimilationist. I always thought gays had some special mission.
The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.
The further on we go, the more meaning there is, but the less articulable. You live your life and the older you get- the more specifically you harvest- the more precious becomes every ounce and spasm. Your life and times don’t drain of meaning because they become more contradictory, ornamented by paradox, inexplicable. The less explicable, the more meaning. The less like a mathematics equation (a sum game); the more like music (significant secret).
Forming grammatically correct sentences is for the normal individual the prerequisite for any submission to social laws. No one is supposed to be ignorant of grammaticality; those who are belong in special institutions. The unity of language is fundamentally political.
In this mob of I's inside, which one is me? Hear me out. I know I'm wandering, but don't start putting a lid on this racket. No telling what I'll do then. Every moment I'm thrown by your story. One moment it's happy, and I'm singing. One moment it's sad, and I'm weeping. It turns bitter, and I pull away. But then you spill a little grace, and just like that, I'm all light. It's not so bad, this arrangement, actually.
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