Americans swept away the instruments of English hereditary inequality - entails and titles of nobility - even before we had a constitution.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes America's rejection of English nobility and hereditary privilege before forming its own government.
In this quote, Steven Weinberg highlights a foundational aspect of American identity: the deliberate choice to dismantle the structures of inherited privilege typical of English society. This reflects the revolutionary spirit of the time, where equality and meritocracy were prioritized over aristocratic titles and advantages, setting the stage for the democratic principles that would later be enshrined in the Constitution.
In practice
During a speech on democracy, one might quote Weinberg to emphasize the importance of equality in American values.
It was one time when people thought the value of the fine structure constant was important. Now of course it's still important, of course, as a practical matter,but we now know that the value it has is a function, that in any fundamental theory you derive the fine structure constant as a function of all sorts of mass ratios and so on and it's not really that fundamental.
It's very difficult to convince other countries that they shouldn't pursue nuclear weapons programs if we ourselves are actively developing a component of a strategic defense system.
[Science] is corrosive of religious belief, and it's a good thing too.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
I'm offended by the kind of smarmy religiosity that's all around us, perhaps more in America than in Europe, and not really that harmful because it's not really that intense or even that serious, but just... you know after a while you get tired of hearing clergymen giving the invocation at various public celebrations and you feel, haven't we outgrown all this? Do we have to listen to this?
How strange it would be if the final theory were to be discovered in our lifetimes! The discovery of the final laws of nature will mark a discontinuity in human intellectual history, the sharpest that has occurred since the beginning of modern science in the seventeenth century. Can we now imagine what that would be like?
You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilisation to pieces, turn the world upside down and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of literature.
We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake.
My religion is kindness. _x000D_ A good mind, a good heart, _x000D_ warm feelings these are _x000D_ the most important things.
Do not look at the faces in the illustrated papers. Look at the faces in the street.
sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man the most guilty.
Racism is a moral catastrophe, most graphically seen in the prison industrial complex and targeted police surveillance in black and brown ghettos rendered invisible in public discourse.
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