3 ms·

In a society of extreme conformity, those who dare to not comply are seen as insulting to the rest.

PavlovsCat 7y ago
I would say to those who identified with aggressors have to project what broke them on those who resist it. Being silent is support, and people like Stephen Hawking would know nobody who think it's perfectly acceptable in polite society to be obedient and quiet. Alan Turing might have recognized the murderous cowardice inherent in it, too. One wouldn't know from those making selfies with the dead, and I wish the dead could speak, and scream "begone, I never knew you" where applicable. All it takes is for supposedly good people to do nothing. We understand that that is true about things that are static and behind glass, with the same little effort with which we pretend it's not true for things that are ongoing and ask for our position. We join in condemning tyrants of the past, and praising their victims in the past -- but how we (fail to) act in the present is what descides if that incense is sweet or reeks to high heaven. > You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid... You refuse to do it because you want to live longer... You're afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid someone will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand. > Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you're just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. I know that some people don't like to hear that. I don't like those people.

I would say to those who identified with aggressors have to project what broke them on those who resist it. Being silent is support, and people like Stephen Hawking would know nobody who think it's perfectly acceptable in polite society to be obedient and quiet. Alan Turing might have recognized the murderous cowardice inherent in it, too. One wouldn't know from those making selfies with the dead, and I wish the dead could speak, and scream "begone, I never knew you" where applicable. All it takes is for supposedly good people to do nothing. We understand that that is true about things that are static and behind glass, with the same little effort with which we pretend it's not true for things that are ongoing and ask for our position. We join in condemning tyrants of the past, and praising their victims in the past -- but how we (fail to) act in the present is what descides if that incense is sweet or reeks to high heaven. > You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid... You refuse to do it because you want to live longer... You're afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid someone will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand. > Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you're just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. I know that some people don't like to hear that. I don't like those people.