The strange power of art is sometimes it can show that what people have in common is more urgent than what differentiates them. It seems to me it's something that theatre can do, but it's rare; it's very rare.
John BergerRead
In the modern world, in which thousands of people are dying every hour as a consequence of politics, no writing anywhere can begin to be credible unless it is informed by political awareness and principles. Writers who have neither product utopian trash.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writers must have political awareness to produce credible work in today's world where politics can have dire consequences.
John Berger emphasizes the critical need for writers to engage with political realities and principles in their work. In a time when political actions and decisions lead to significant human suffering, literature that ignores these elements lacks credibility and relevance, potentially leading to an unrealistic or idealistic portrayal of the world. Berger warns against utopian narratives that fail to acknowledge the harsh truths of political consequences.
Themes
PoliticsWritingCredibilityAwarenessUtopia
In practice
Example use cases
During a literature festival, discussing how writers should reflect political realities in their storytelling.
More from John Berger
All quotes →Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.
John BergerRead
We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.
John BergerRead
The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.
John BergerRead
Propaganda requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans. Its pace is usually fast.
John BergerRead
Being a unique superpower undermines the military intelligence of strategy. To think strategically, one has to imagine oneself in the enemy's place. If one cannot do this, it is impossible to foresee, to take by surprise, to outflank. Misinterpreting an enemy can lead to defeat. This is how empires fall.
John BergerRead
Similar quotes
He thought that the rose was to be found in its own eternity and not in his words; and that we may mention or allude to a thing, but not express it.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
With the same honest views, the most honest men often form different conclusions.
Thomas JeffersonRead
This earth indeed is the very Body of God, and it is from this body that we are born, live, suffer, and resurrect to eternal life. Either all is God's Great Project, or we may rightly wonder whether anything is God's Great Project. One wonders if we humans will be the last to accept this.
Richard RohrRead
Seen through the eyes of faith, religion's future is secure. As long as there are human beings, there will be religion for the sufficient reason that the self is a theomorphic creature - one whose morphe (form) is theos - God encased within it. Having been created in the imago Dei, the image God, all human beings have a God-shaped vacuum built into their hearts. Since nature abhors a vacuum, people keep trying to fill the one inside them.
Huston SmithRead
It is one of the consolations of philosophy that the benefit of showing how to dispense with a concept does not hinge on dispensing with it.
Willard Van Orman QuineRead
They watch on, evil, incredibly stupid, enjoying my destruction. 'Poor Grendel's had an accident,' I whisper. 'So may you all.
John GardnerRead