Agricultural sustainability doesn't depend on agritechnology. To believe it does is to put the emphasis on the wrong bit of 'agriculture.' What sustainability depends on isn't agri- so much as culture.
Raj PatelRead
A fertilizer bomb that kills hundreds in Oklahoma. Fuel-laden civil jets that kill 4000 in New York. A sanctions policy that kills one and a half million in Iraq. A trade policy that immiserates continents. You can make a bomb out of anything. The ones on paper hurt the most.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the destructive potential of policies and systems that may not seem violent but cause significant harm.
Raj Patel's quote reflects on the various forms of violence and harm in the modern world, emphasizing that while physical bombs are destructive, the policies and decisions made by people can also lead to massive suffering and death. He points out that the systemic failures and harsh realities resulting from political and economic decisions often have more profound and far-reaching consequences than conventional acts of violence.
Themes
ViolencePolicyHarmSufferingSystemicInjustice
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the impacts of economic sanctions, one could quote Patel to emphasize the unseen consequences of such policies.
More from Raj Patel
All quotes →Similar quotes
If we could read the secret history of our enemies.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead
You said 'God is cruel' the way a person who's lived his whole life on Tahiti might say 'Snow is cold'. You knew, but you didn't understand." He stepped close to David and put his palms on the boy's cold cheeks. "Do you know how cruel your God can be, David. How fantastically cruel?
Stephen KingRead
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
we follow One who stood and wept at the grave of Lazarus-not surely, because He was grieved that Mary and Martha wept, and sorrowed for their lack of faith (though some thus interpret) but because death, the punishment of sin, is even more horrible in his eyes than in ours.
C. S. LewisRead
I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view.
Sonia SotomayorRead
The self of which you speak, whether it is the great self or the small self, is only a concept that does not correspond to any reality.
Gautama BuddhaRead