We have a market-driven society so obsessed with buying and selling and obsessed with power and pleasure and property.
Interpretation
The quote critiques society's fixation on materialism and power dynamics.
Cornel West's quote highlights the pitfalls of a market-driven society that prioritizes consumerism, power, and pleasure above all else. It suggests that this obsession can lead to a devaluation of deeper values such as community, empathy, and ethical responsibility, urging individuals to reflect on what truly matters in life beyond material possessions.
In practice
In a discussion on the impact of materialism on mental health.
King's response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a reevaluation of our values, a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens.
You've got to love yourself enough, not only so that others will be able to love you, but that you'll be able to love others.
Profound music leads us beyond language...to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial heights of our silence.
And when I talk about love, I'm talking about something that's great, though, brother. I'm talking about something that will sustain you.
Clever gimmicks of mass distraction yield a cheap soulcraft of addicted and self-medicated narcissists.
I feel as if I have been blessed to undergo a transformation from 'gangster' to 'redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.'
The press doesn't stop publishing, by the way, in a fascist escalation; it simply watches what it says. That too can be an incremental process, and the pace at which the free press polices itself depends on how journalists are targeted.
Oh! why was I born with a different face? why was I not born like the rest of my race? when I look,each one starts! when I speak, I offend; then Im silent & passive & lose every friend. Then my verse I dishonour, my pictures despise, my person degrade & my temper chastise; and the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame; all my talents I bury, and dead is my fame. Im either too low or too highly prized; when elate I m envy'd, when meek Im despis'd
[Aristotle formal logic thus far (1787)] has not been able to advance a single step, and hence is to all appearances closed and completed.
The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reason and analysis but first of all by living.
And after death something new begins, over which all the powers of the world of death can have no more control.
If, sir, men were all virtuous, I should with great alacrity teach them all to fly. But what would be the security of the good if the bad could at pleasure invade them from the sky? Against an army sailing through the clouds neither wall, nor mountains, nor seas could afford any security.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.