Those with a gift for action, for their part, often express contempt for those whose gifts are more reflective. Men of action like to say, 'Those who can, do, those who can't, teach,' forgetting that those who teach get to write the history books.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the value of both action and reflection, particularly highlighting the importance of teaching in shaping history.
Michael Ignatieff's quote suggests a tension between action and reflection, where individuals who take action often dismiss those who reflect and teach. It points out that while doers are active in their pursuits, teachers play a critical role in influencing how history and knowledge are recorded and understood, thus both roles are essential in a balanced society.
In practice
In a discussion about the education system, one might say, 'As Ignatieff reminds us, those who teach truly shape our understanding of history.'
Genocide is not just a murderous madness; it is, more deeply, a politics that promises a utopia beyond politics - one people, one land, one truth, the end of difference. Since genocide is a form of political utopia, it remains an enduring temptation in any multiethnic and multicultural society in crisis.
Commerce has changed the ethics of citizenship and the incentives for national service. America now buys private contractors - we used to call them mercenaries - to do the country's fighting.
Desert Storm created the pattern for the American way of war that eventually prevailed in Kosovo. America learned from Vietnam that unilateral use of force eventually forfeits international legitimacy and domestic support. Desert Storm demonstrated the political necessity of coalition warfare.
Communism may be over as an economic system, but as a model of state domination, it is very much alive in the People's Republic of China and in Putin's police state.
Trouble is, we call politics a game, but it isn't one. There is no referee, and the teams make up the rules as they go along. You can't cry foul or offside in politics. Almost anything goes.
How do you keep war accountable to the American people when war becomes invisible and virtual?
What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation?
I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.
The product of paper and printed ink, that we commonly call the book, is one of the great visible mediators between spirit and time, and, reflecting zeitgeist, lasts as long as ore and stone.
And once we have given our community a good start,' I pointed out, ' the process will be cumulative. By maintaining a sound system of education you produce citizens of good character, and citizens of sound character, with the advantage of a good education, produce in turn children better than themselves and better able to produce still better children in their turn, as can be seen with animals.
The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.
I've always been curious about how much of our cultural baggage we bring to what and how we read. I suspect we bring a lot, although we like to think we don't.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.