It is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less. Strangest of all, it is a campaign not just against other people, but against ourselves.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes a campaign focused on self-restraint and moderation rather than excess and liberation.
George Monbiot's quote highlights a paradoxical movement that advocates for austerity rather than abundance, suggesting that true freedom may lie not in having more, but in embracing less. It challenges the notion that societal progress relies on external changes alone, pointing out that the most profound shifts must occur within ourselves as we combat our own desires and excesses.
In practice
During a speech about sustainable living, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of moderation.
The notions that nature exists to serve us; that its value consists of the instrumental benefits we can extract; that this value can be measured in cash terms; and that what can't be measured does not matter, have proved lethal to the rest of life on Earth.
I believe that anyone who wants to stand in a national election should receive a course of psychotherapy. Completing the course should be a qualification for office. This wouldn't change the behaviour of psychopaths, but it might prevent some people who exercise power from imposing their own deep wounds on others.
I became an environmentalist because I love the living world, but I spend much of my life thinking about electricity, industrial processes and civil engineering.
Places that have become agricultural deserts, trashed by giant corporations, could be reforested, drawing carbon dioxide from the air on a vast scale. The ecosystems of land and sea could recover, not just in pockets but across great tracts of the planet.
Never underestimate the power of intrinsic values. They inspire every struggle for a better world.
Why is it so easy to save the banks - but so hard to save the biosphere?
Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.
The moment when someone attaches you to a philosophy or a movement, then they assign all the baggage and all the rest of the philosophy that goes with it to you. And when you want to have a conversation, they will assert that they already know everything important there is to know about you because of that association. And that's not the way to have a conversation.
In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.
You're water. We're the millstone. You're wind. We're dust blown up into shapes. You're spirit. We're the opening and closing of our hands. You're the clarity. We're the language that tries to say it. You're joy. We're all the different kinds of laughing.
Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room.
Irreverence is a most necessary ingredient of religion. Not to speak of its importance in philosophy. Irreverence is the only way left to us for testing our universe.
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