Margaret Thatcher has shown that there is power and dignity to be won by defying the status quo and the majority rather than by adapting to them. If the British left, which she froze into immobility like Medusa, could bring itself to learn from this, then we might not have to look upon her like again.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of challenging the status quo to attain power and dignity, rather than conforming to the majority.
Christopher Hitchens reflects on Margaret Thatcher's leadership style, highlighting that her defiance against the prevailing norms and majority opinions led to a significant sense of power and dignity. He suggests that if the political left in Britain learned from her example, they could avoid becoming stagnant and instead foster progress, critiquing the left's tendency to remain immobile in response to formidable leadership like Thatcher's.
In practice
In a political speech about necessary reforms.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
There is really no crisis except an artificial one...If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the trouble will come to an end.
A major reason capable people fail to advance is that they don't work well with their colleagues.
Begin with praise and honest appreciation. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. Make the fault easy to correct. Make the other person happy about doing what you suggest.
In the South, there was absence of any leadership corresponding in breadth and courage to that of Abraham Lincoln.
A leader is not someone who says: Follow me.......A leader is someone who says: I'll go first.
If we allow the celebrity rock-star model of leadership to triumph, we will see the decline of corporations and institutions of all types. The twentieth century was a century of greatness, but we face the very real prospect that the next century will see very few enduring great institutions.
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