Political activism is not failing because people are too busy watching cat videos online, but because of a fundamental collapse of citizen leverage on institutions of power like governments and corporations.
Zeynep TufekciRead
A 'fair' fight between non-equals is not fair, and being blind to power is an implicit endorsement of the powerful.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights that true fairness cannot exist between parties of unequal power, and ignoring this inequality supports the dominance of the powerful.
Zeynep Tufekci's quote brings attention to the concept of fairness in conflict and power dynamics. When two parties engage in a 'fair' fight but are not equal in their inherent power, the very notion of fairness is undermined. Failing to recognize and address these power imbalances serves to legitimize the authority of those who hold power, suggesting a complicity in the status quo.
Themes
FairnessPowerInequalityConflictJustice
In practice
Example use cases
Discussing the importance of recognizing inequalities in a debate on social justice.
More from Zeynep Tufekci
All quotes βGiven exponential growth dynamics of infectious diseases, containing an epidemic is straightforward early on, but nearly impossible once a disease spreads among a population.
Zeynep TufekciRead
Remember, the Internet did not create freedom of speech; in theory, we always had freedom of speech - it's just that it often went along with the freedom to be ignored. People had no access to the infrastructure to be heard.
Zeynep TufekciRead
Attention, to a terrorist group, is often what the well-meaning, outraged response is to your two-bit Internet troll: it is the food that feeds them.
Zeynep TufekciRead
Much of what ails our modern life is exactly because we reduce the value of a human being to a number, say salary or consumer power.
Zeynep TufekciRead
You might be tempted to think that China has a Streisand-effect problem, in which trying to censor an event creates even more publicity. But that assumes the Chinese government doesn't understand the Streisand effect, and that can't be right, because if one government understands attention dynamics online, it's China's.
Zeynep TufekciRead
Similar quotes
The experience of our generation: _x000D_ that capitalism will not die a natural death.
Walter BenjaminRead
Being desirable means being comfortable with your own ambiguity. The most ambiguous reality is that we are flesh and spirit at the same time. Within everyone there is light and shadow, good and evil, love and hate. In order to be truthful, you must embrace your total being. A person who exhibits both positive and negative qualities, strengths and weaknesses is not flawed, but complete.
RumiRead
Fool that I was, upon my eagle's wings I bore this wren, till I was tired with soaring, and now he mounts above me.
John DrydenRead
The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea.
Max LernerRead
I'll be darned!" said Douglas. "I never thought of that. That's brilliant! It's true. Old people never were children!" "And it's kind of sad," said Tom, sitting still."There's nothing we can do to help them.
Ray BradburyRead
No human being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure that he does.
Henry David ThoreauRead