A government or a party gets the people it deserves and sooner or later a people gets the government it deserves.
Frantz FanonRead
What I call middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery. I call middle-class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt. And I think that a man who takes a stand against this death is in a sense a revolutionary.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques a stagnant society that resists change and progress, labeling those who challenge it as revolutionaries.
Frantz Fanon portrays middle-class society as one that is inflexible and oppressive, stifling creativity and growth. He argues that when individuals stand up against such a repressive environment, they embody the spirit of revolution, fighting against the moral and intellectual decay that characterizes a closed society.
Themes
SocietyProgressRevolutionChangeStagnation
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about societal change, this quote can highlight the importance of adaptability over conformity.
More from Frantz Fanon
All quotes →When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.
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I want the world to recognize with me the open door of every consciousness
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The gaze that the colonized subject casts at the colonist's sector is a look of lust, a look of envy. Dreams of possession. Every type of possession; of sitting at the colonist's table and sleeping in his bed, preferably with his wife. The colonized man is an envious man.
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Hate demands existence, and he who hates has to show his hate in appropriate actions and behaviors; in a sense, he has to become hate. That is why the Americans have substituted discrimination for lynching.
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