Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.
Interpretation
Privilege can dull our ability to empathize and imagine the experiences of others.
Chinua Achebe's quote reflects on how privilege can act as a barrier to our imagination and sensitivity towards others. It suggests that when individuals are shielded by their own advantages and comforts, they may struggle to truly understand and empathize with the suffering or experiences of those who lack such privileges, thereby limiting their imaginative capabilities and emotional perceptions.
In practice
During a lecture on social justice, this quote can illustrate the impact of privilege on empathy.
In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a while, I began to feel that the story that I was told about this religion wasn't perhaps completely whole, that something was left out.
Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!
Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not depend on large crowds. Our Lord Himself stressed the importance of fewness. Narrow is the way and few the number. To fill the Lord's holy temple with an idolatrous crowd clamoring for signs was a folly of everlasting consequence. Our Lord used the whip only once in His life - to drive the crowd away from His church.
It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.
Writing has always been a serious business for me. I felt it was a moral obligation. A major concern of the time was the absence of the African voice. Being part of that dialogue meant not only sitting at the table but effectively telling the African story from an African perspective - in full earshot of the world.
An angry man is always a stupid man.
He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.
I believe that the time given to refutation in philosophy is usually time lost. Of the many attacks directed by many thinkers against each other, what now remains? Nothing, or assuredly very little. That which counts and endures is the modicum of positive truth which each contributes. The true statement is, of itself, able to displace the erroneous idea, and becomes, without our having taken the trouble of refuting anyone, the best of refutations.
Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes _x000D_ They call me on and on across the universe _x000D_ Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box _x000D_ They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe
You'll see certain Pythagorean whose belief in communism of property goes to such lengths that they pick up anything lying about unguarded, and make off with it without a qualm of conscience as if it had come to them by law.
Your true meaning cannot be grasped or captured by words. You can never be equated with any words, because you are prior to words.
Suddenly, madness was everywhere, and I was determined to learn about the impact it had on the way society evolves. I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?
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