Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear.
Naomi KleinRead
If this really is true, then greed really isn't good, after all. It really isn't the way to maximize the best possible outcome. We really do need to come together and act collectively. Government isn't always the problem. It's sometimes the solution. And, so their whole intellectual scaffolding collapses. So, they'd rather deny the science.
Interpretation
The quote critiques greed and advocates for collective action as a solution.
Naomi Klein highlights the flaws in the belief that greed leads to optimal outcomes, arguing instead that working together as a society can bring about better results. She suggests that dismissing the role of government ignores its potential as a force for good and that a reliance on individualism undermines the pursuit of effective solutions to societal issues.
In practice
During a community meeting about resource management, this quote can be cited to highlight the need for cooperative solutions.
Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear.
Because it is such a huge crisis, because it puts us on a firm science-based deadline, it's a once-in-a-century opportunity to build a better society and address raging inequality, create huge numbers of jobs, rebuild our public infrastructure. But, we can't do it unless we break every single rule in the free-market playbook. Which is why the worst people in the world all deny climate change.
Terrorism doesn't just blow up buildings; it blasts every other issue off the political map. The spectre of terrorism - real and exaggerated - has become a shield of impunity, protecting governments around the world from scrutiny for their human rights abuses.
Everybody that's trying to get anything progressive done in this country knows that the biggest barrier is getting money out of politics.
I think I would say that there is absolutely no way to reconcile an austerity agenda with climate action. Our political class needs to understand that the fight against austerity and the fight for climate action are the same fight.
I think the fossil fuel industry is genuinely freaked out by the combination of the price collapse, the divestment movement, and that fact that renewable energy is getting so cheap so fast.
Holding back is so close to stealing.
Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!
Remember this-all the sighing, mourning, sobbing, and complaining in the world, does not so undeniably evidence a man to be humble, as his overlooking his own righteousness, and living really and purely upon the righteousness of Christ.
Once we see an aspect of what we or someone else does as something that happens, we lose our grip on the idea that it has been done and that we can judge the doer and not just the happening.
I went to medical school because I wanted to ask the big questions. Do we have a soul? Does God exist? What happens after death?
I will make a Star-chamber matter of it.
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