It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
What else can the young be? When you are on the bottom, you must organize from the bottom up
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of grassroots organization and empowerment for youth in challenging circumstances.
In this quote, Ursula K. Le Guin highlights the necessity for young people, especially those in disadvantaged positions, to take initiative and drive change from their own experiences and backgrounds. It suggests that effective solutions and movements often arise from collective action among those who are most affected by the issues at hand, advocating for youth to embrace their potential to influence change even when they feel powerless.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a youth leadership conference could use this quote to inspire attendees to take action in their communities.
More from Ursula K. Le Guin
All quotes βIn reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel - that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little... But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.
Reason is a faculty far larger than mere objective force. When either the political or the scientific discourse announces itself as the voice of reason, it is playing God, and should be spanked and stood in the corner.
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.
We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.
When he found that the administrators were upset, he laughed. βDo they expect students not to be anarchists?β he said. βWhat else can the young be? When you are on the bottom, you must organize from the bottom up
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There are more black men incarcerated today than there were slaves in 1850.
Each of us, as citizens, has a role to play in creating a better world for our children
Most new movements start this way: hundreds or thousands of individuals and groups, working in different fields and different locations, start thinking about change using a common language, without necessarily recognizing those shared values. You just start following your own vector, propelled along by people in your immediate vicinity. And then one day, you look up and realize that all those individual trajectories have turned into a wave.
I'm just one generation between someone who cheered when Germans were burning and someone who doesn't even know that there is a border. That's a miracle - really is a miracle - and it gets me really emotional.
There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it.
By healing the internal issues that we can heal as a people, our children don't have to suffer the same agony and pain that we put each other through.