The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.
Barbara EhrenreichRead
The "discovery" of poverty at the beginning of the 1960s was something like the "discovery" of America almost five hundred years earlier. In the case of each of these exotic terrains, plenty of people were on the site before the discoverers ever arrived.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the misconception of discovering poverty as if it were a new phenomenon, akin to the discovery of America, when in reality it has long existed.
Barbara Ehrenreich's quote critiques the tendency to frame the recognition of poverty as a novel revelation, similar to the colonial narrative of America being 'discovered.' It underscores the idea that issues of poverty have always existed, with countless individuals experiencing its effects long before policymakers or society acknowledged it. This observation calls attention to the need for a deeper understanding of social issues that are often overlooked until they gain public attention.
Themes
PovertyDiscoverySocial IssuesHistorical ContextAwareness
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a speech about social justice to highlight historical misunderstandings.
More from Barbara Ehrenreich
All quotes →The secret of the truly successful, I believe, is that they learned very early in life how not to be busy. They saw through that adage, repeated to me so often in childhood, that anything worth doing is worth doing well. The truth is, many things are worth doing only in the most slovenly, halfhearted fashion possible, and many other things are not worth doing at all.
Barbara EhrenreichRead
From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8,000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.
Barbara EhrenreichRead
Well I do think there are people who are habitually negative and depressed and take the opposite approach because they imagine the worst, and their minds become dominated by that. They let their own emotions and expectations transform their perceptions of the world.
Barbara EhrenreichRead
Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody's mom in that she knows what's best for us. But if you look at the historical record - Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages - you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway?
Barbara EhrenreichRead
I would never call myself a cancer survivor because I think it devalues those who do not survive. There's this whole mythology that people bravely battle their cancer and then they become survivors. Well, the ones who don't survive may be just as brave, you know, just as courageous, wonderful people.
Barbara EhrenreichRead
Similar quotes
Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst; he promises honor, and pays with disgrace; he promises pleasure, and pays with pain; he promises profit, and pays with loss, he promises life, and pays with death. But God pays as he promises; all his payments are made in pure gold.
Thomas BrooksRead
Suffering is essential for the elimination of the ego, just as it was necessary for you to scrub and scrub in order to wash the stain from my coat.
Meher BabaRead
To the indefinite, uncertain mind of the American radical the most contradictory ideas and methods are possible. The result is a sad chaos in the radical movement, a sort of intellectual hash, which has neither taste nor character.
Emma GoldmanRead
Only He who really lived a human life (and I presume that only one did) can fully taste the horror of death.
C. S. LewisRead
Patriotism is "a very definite feeling of preference for one's own people or State above all other peoples and States, and a consequent wish to get for that people or State the greatest advantages and power that can be got - things which are obtainable only at the expense of the advantages and power of other peoples or States."
Leo TolstoyRead
In the final analysis, true justice is not a matter of courts and law books, but of a commitment in each of us to liberty and mutual respect.
Jimmy CarterRead