There is no plausible theory under which the record of the Pentagon Papers can be interpreted as relating to the national defense.
Noam ChomskyRead
It is quite possible--overwhelmingly probable, one might guess--that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology
Interpretation
Literature provides deeper insights into human nature than scientific approaches.
Chomsky suggests that the rich, narrative form of novels allows for a more profound understanding of human life and personality than the analytical methods used in scientific psychology. This perspective underscores the value of storytelling in exploring the complexities of the human experience, illustrating how fiction can resonate with emotional truths that data alone may overlook.
In practice
In a book club discussion about the impact of literature on our understanding of people.
There is no plausible theory under which the record of the Pentagon Papers can be interpreted as relating to the national defense.
The 'free-floating intellectual' may occupy himself with problems because of their inherent interest and importance, perhaps to little effect.
If you're teaching today what you were teaching five years ago, either the field is dead or you are.
There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, 'That person I see is a savage monster;' instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.
The Republican Party has become overwhelmingly so extreme that it's hardly a traditional political party anymore.
There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information - the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified.
Try to understand what I am saying: everything is dependent on everything else, everything is connected, nothing is separate. Therefore everything is going in the only way it can go. If people were different everything would be different. They are what they are, so everything is as it is.
Before you come alive, life is nothing; it 's up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing else but the meaning that you choose.
Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.
The environment is everything that isn't me.
Let us admit, without bitterness, that the individual has his distinct interests and can, without felony, stipulate for those interests and defend them. The present has its pardonable amount of egotism; momentary life has its claims, and cannot be expected to sacrifice itself incessantly to the future. The generation which is in its turn passing over the earth is not forced to abridge its life for the sake of the generations, its equals after all, whose turn shall come later on.
I was a wife and mother, blameless in moral life, with a deep sense of duty and a proud self-respect; it was while I was this that doubt struck me, and while I was in the guarded circle of the home, with no dream of outside work or outside liberty, that I lost all faith in Christianity.
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