Envy, propelled by fear, can be even more toxic than anger, because it involves the thought that other people enjoy the good things of life which the envier can't hope to attain through hard work and emulation.
Martha NussbaumRead
This is true across every single society; we project grossness onto a racial or gender subgroup or caste. A big part of social subordination and discrimination is to ascribe hyper-animality to other groups and use that as an excuse for subordinating them further.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote discusses how society dehumanizes certain groups through negative stereotypes, justifying discrimination.
Martha Nussbaum highlights the pervasive issue of social subordination and discrimination, where particular racial or gender groups are often depicted as less than human. By attributing exaggerated animalistic traits to these groups, society rationalizes further oppressive behaviors and systemic inequalities, making it imperative to recognize and challenge such harmful narratives to promote equality and justice.
Themes
DiscriminationDehumanizationStereotypesSocial JusticeEqualityOppression
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on social equality at a university event.
More from Martha Nussbaum
All quotes →Often, we feel helpless in lots of situations in our lives. The way anger gets a grip on us is it seems to be a way to extricate ourselves from helplessness.
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Courses in the humanities, in particular, often seem impractical, but they are vital, because they stretch your imagination and challenge your mind to become more responsive, more critical, bigger.
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I find so often, you know, just on a very mundane level; you've got a meeting and your child's acting in a school play. You can't do both things. And it's not simply that you can't do both, but whatever you do, you're going to be neglecting something that's really important.
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Look at the great tradition of Western political philosophy. Those people were all immersed in revolutionary movements. Most weren't career academics - often, they were too radical to be accepted in the academy. Rousseau's books were banned. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill couldn't hold academic positions because they were atheists.
Martha NussbaumRead
There is no reason why an American scholar cannot by himself or herself develop an adequate understanding of another culture. And I don't find any reason to suppose that the birth within a culture automatically confers understanding.
Martha NussbaumRead
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