Clearly, the qualities Poles admire in a secretary of state - foreign languages, diplomatic experience, even sense of humor - are emphatically not those desired in a head of state: So be it.
Anne ApplebaumRead
All nations are imagined communities, and our imagined community is based on a uniquely inspiring set of principles. Americans have proved that they can be loyal to, and will fight on behalf of, a more complex, more cerebral national ideal, one derived from ideas of democracy and justice as opposed to blood and soil.
Interpretation
Nations exist as collective ideas shaped by shared principles rather than purely ethnic or territorial ties.
Anne Applebaum's quote highlights the notion that nations are constructs of shared beliefs and ideals, particularly emphasizing the American identity, which is founded on democratic principles and concepts of justice. This perspective challenges the traditional notions of national identity based solely on ethnicity or geography, suggesting that loyalty to a nation can stem from a commitment to its ideals rather than its bloodlines or land.
In practice
This quote can be used during a lecture on political science to illustrate the concept of national identity.
Clearly, the qualities Poles admire in a secretary of state - foreign languages, diplomatic experience, even sense of humor - are emphatically not those desired in a head of state: So be it.
At times when people fear death, they go along with measures that they believe, rightly or wrongly, will save them - even if that means a loss of freedom. Such measures have been popular in the past.
Birtherism surely increased Americans' distrust of politics, though in ways that are hard to pin down. By contrast, when anti-vaxxers persuade parents not to vaccinate children, the result can be sickness and even death.
Quite a lot has been written, including by me, about the effect of social media on politics, and in particular the way in which the algorithms built into Facebook and YouTube are more likely to spread angry, extremist and deliberately provocative political language.
As a journalist, I know what it is like to incur the self-righteous wrath of people who denounce you for things you didn't say or didn't mean.
If we can't have a public debate because the information space is so polluted, or because people are afraid of the reactions of organized trolls, then we can't really have meaningful elections anymore, either.
IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions ... The good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life.
The future is neither ahead nor behind, on one side or another. Nor is it dark or light. It is contained within ourselves; its evil and good are perpetually within us.
Want of imagination makes things unreal enough to be destroyed. By imagination I mean knowledge and love. I mean compassion. People of power kill children, the old send the young to die, because they have no imagination. They have power. Can you have power and imagination at the same time? Can you kill people you don’t know and have compassion for them at the same time?
Lamps are different, but light is the same.
Peace is a very complicated concept. When the lion gobbles up the lamb and wipes his lips, then there's peace. Well, I ain't for that peace at all.
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