To me, there is nothing higher than fiction. Nothing. It is fundamentally who I am. I am a teller of stories. For me, that's the only way I can make sense of the world, with all the dance that it involves.
Arundhati RoyRead
Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead. When independent-thinking people (and here I do not include the corporate media) begin to rally under flags, when writers, painters, musicians, film makers suspend their judgment and blindly yoke their art to the service of the “Nation,” it’s time for all of us to sit up and worry.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote warns against the dangers of nationalism and the uncritical support of flag and government.
In this quote, Arundhati Roy critiques the use of flags as symbols that both manipulate public thought and serve to divide humanity. She highlights the concern that when creative individuals compromise their independent judgment to serve nationalistic agendas, it signals a troubling trend where art and individual thought are subordinated to nationalism, urging a call to awareness and caution about the implications of such conformity.
Themes
FlagsNationalismArtIndependenceThought
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about art and politics at a community seminar.
More from Arundhati Roy
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Caste is about dividing people up in ways that preclude every form of solidarity, because even in the lowest castes, there are divisions and sub-castes, and everyone's co-opted into the business of this hierarchical, silo-ised society.
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When I decided to write 'The God of Small Things', I had been working in cinema. It was almost a decision to downshift from there. I thought that 300 people would read it. But it created a platform of trust.
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In California, there are huge problems because of dams. I'm against big dams, per se, because I think that they are economically unfeasible. They're ecologically unsustainable. And they're hugely undemocratic.
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To call someone 'anti-American', indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination.
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