Racial prejudices are indication of a disturbed and potentially unstable society.
Interpretation
Racial prejudices reflect societal instability and unrest.
This quote by Kenneth Clark emphasizes that the presence of racial prejudices serves as a warning signal of deeper societal issues. It suggests that when a society harbors biases based on race, it may indicate a failure in social cohesion and stability, potentially leading to conflict and unrest if left unaddressed.
In practice
During a speech on social justice, one might quote Kenneth Clark to highlight the importance of combating racism.
The recognized achievements of some Negroes, despite rigid racial barriers, indicate that society by its prejudices may be depriving itself of valuable contributions from many others. It is now doubtful whether America can afford the luxury of such a waste of human resources.
No nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even if it be only the faintest shadow - and if it does not do so it is bad art and false morals.
Extremism. It is an almost infallible sign β a kind of death-rattle β when a human institution is forced by its members into stressing those and only those factors which are identificatory, at the expense of others which it necessarily shares with competing institutions because human beings belong to all of them.
And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived.
A society whose principles are acquisition, profit, and property produces a social character oriented around having, and once the dominant pattern is established, nobody wants to be an outsider, or indeed an outcast; in order to avoid this risk everybody adapts to the majority, who have in common only their mutual antagonism.
Not to think of yourself / as someone who did not count -- / Festival of the Souls.
We have to stop thinking of criminals as 'them' and admit to ourselves, 'There but for the grace of God go I.'
There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness or death. Any attempt to prove otherwise constitutes unacceptable behavior.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.