Commerce is a noble profession, and Jews should get over any self-hatred they might harbor from contemplating the capitalist spirit of diaspora Judaism.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the value of commerce and challenges negative self-perceptions among Jews related to capitalism.
Steven Pinker highlights that commerce is an honorable profession, particularly within the context of Jewish history and identity. He encourages Jews to move past any self-hatred that may arise from their association with capitalist practices, suggesting that the entrepreneurial spirit, especially as exemplified in diaspora communities, should be embraced rather than shunned.
In practice
In a speech about entrepreneurship, one might quote this to inspire confidence in Jewish business leaders.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
And there, right in the middle of it, I find 'Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us.' There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven.
Jesus didn't come to tell us the answers to the questions of life, he came to be the answer.
***A Last note from your narrator*** I am haunted by humans.
All of us are citizens in a republic much larger than the Republic of America. It is the Republic of Letters, a realm of the mind that extends everywhere, without police, national boundaries, or disciplinary frontiers.
Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature.
We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.
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