I think one of the most important changes of our time has been our attitude to fear. Every civilisation defends itself by keeping fears out and saying 'we protect you from fear'. But it also produces new fears and throughout history people have changed the kind of fears which have worried them.
Interpretation
Our perception of fear and how societies manage it has evolved over time.
The quote by Theodore Zeldin highlights the evolution of society's relationship with fear. It suggests that civilizations often shield people from certain fears while inadvertently creating new ones, indicating that our fears are shaped by cultural attitudes and historical contexts. This perspective invites reflection on how changing societal norms can alter our understanding and responses to fear.
In practice
In a discussion about societal challenges, you might quote Zeldin to emphasize the importance of understanding our fears.
Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards.
We think of speaking as something we do naturally, without any effort. But like playing music, it requires attention and knowledge and practice.
So much of what passes for conversation today is degraded. It's either about one-upmanship, or dreary trivia. Even the cut and thrust of wit and bons mots is a form of bedazzlement designed to stop conversations dead rather than broaden them.
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However fascinating you may think you are, there is a limit to what you can know about yourself.
If I obey Jesus Christ, the redemption of God will flow through me to the lives of others, because behind the deed of obedience is the reality of Almighty God.
To the extent math refers to reality, we are not certain to the extent we are certain, math does not refer to reality.
I court not the votes of the fickle mob.
Bart Giamatti did not grow up (as he had dreamed) to play second base for the Red Sox. He became a professor at Yale, and then, in time president of the National Baseball League. He never lost his love for the Boston Red Sox. It was as a Red Sox fan, he later realized that human beings are fallen, and that life is filled with disappointment. The path to comprehending Calvinism in modern America, he decided, begins at Fenway Park.
Many of us have created lives that give very little support for experimentation. We believe that answers already exist out there, independent of us. What if we invested more time and attention to our own experimentation? We could focus our efforts on discovering solutions that work uniquely for us.
Whenever you see a board up with "Trespassers will be prosecuted," trespass at once.
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