The cultivation - even celebration - of victimhood by intellectuals, tort lawyers, politicians and the media is both cause and effect of today's culture of complaint.
Interpretation
The quote critiques how various societal figures promote a victim mentality, which in turn contributes to a culture focused on complaining.
George Will's quote highlights the concern that the encouragement and celebration of victimhood by influential groups like intellectuals, lawyers, politicians, and the media create a cycle where complaining becomes a standard practice in society. He suggests that this state of victimhood not only arises from these influences but also perpetuates a culture that prioritizes grievances over solutions, ultimately shaping the social landscape negatively.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about social responsibility and the importance of taking personal accountability.
The problem with intelligent-design theory, is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable. Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet - a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school's science curriculum.
Correct thinkers think that 'baseball trivia' is an oxymoron: nothing about baseball is trivial.
Constitutional arguments that seem as dry as dust can have momentous consequences.
The civil forfeiture law - if something so devoid of due process can be dignified as law - is an incentive for perverse behavior: Predatory government agencies get to pocket the proceeds from property they seize from Americans without even charging them with, let alone convicting them of, crimes. Criminals are treated better than this because they lose the fruits of their criminality only after being convicted.
Actually, there is only one first question of government, and it is How should we live? or What kind of people do we want our citizens to be?
The business of America is not business. Neither is it war. The business of america is justice and securing the blessings of liberty.
The concept of substitution lies at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.
Only within yourself exists the other reality for which you long. I can give you nothing that has not already its being within yourself. I can throw open to you no picture gallery but your own soul.
But if something did happen, it happened. Whether it's right or wrong. I accept everything that happens, and that's how I became the person I am now.
Clay is moulded to make a vessel, but the utility of the vessel lies in the space where there is nothing. . . . Thus, taking advantage of what is, we recognize the utility of what is not.
It is a pathetic moment in the history of the human condition when the outside world tells us who and what we are - and we start to believe it ourselves. Then, bent over from the weight of the negativity, we start to wither on the outside.
You were the dead; theirs was the future.
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