War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to 'feel good' about themselves, or their country, is a measure of that failure.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that war indicates a lack of creativity and understanding in solving political and social issues.
Adrienne Rich's quote suggests that the occurrence of war reflects a profound failure in both the scientific and political imagination, indicating that societies resort to violence rather than seeking peaceful, innovative solutions. Moreover, the notion that war can somehow improve national self-esteem illustrates a misguided justification that underscores the inability to envision alternatives to conflict. Essentially, Rich argues that the real failure lies in the approach to human problems, where the potential for inventive thinking is overshadowed by the tragic reality of warfare.
In practice
In a speech about conflict resolution, this quote can be used to highlight the need for innovative solutions.
My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.
A president cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored.'β
There is no 'the truth','a truth' - truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. the pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet
It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness
It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!'
You never hear about a pit bull doing anything good in the media. And they have a stigma to them... and, in many ways, pit bulls are like young African-American males. Whenever you see us in the news, it's for getting shot and killed or shooting and killing somebody - for being a stereotype.
For black people, everything we do has to be ratified and endorsed by a power structure that is white. And that reinforces a kind of racial hierarchy where whiteness is the privileged position to be in, and ethnicity is problematic.
Ours is a culture and a time immensely rich in trash as it is in treasures.
The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so they believe they are clever as he.
Underlying the whole scheme of civilization is the confidence men have in each other, confidence in their integrity, confidence in their honesty, confidence in their future.
We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women.
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