It's easier for the former masters to put aside the masks that hid their humanity than for the former slaves to recognise the faces underneath. Or to trust that this is not a new mask these are wearing.
Nadine GordimerRead
If people would forget about utopia! When rationalism destroyed heaven and decided to set it up here on earth, that most terrible of all goals entered human ambition. It was clear there'd be no end to what people would be made to suffer for it.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the pursuit of a perfect society, warning that it leads to suffering.
Nadine Gordimer's quote reflects a deep concern about the human ambition to create a utopia on earth through rationalism, which often results in significant suffering and loss. By arguing that striving for perfection can lead to disastrous consequences, Gordimer suggests that the desire for an ideal society often overshadows the values of compassion and understanding, ultimately leading to harm rather than fulfillment.
In practice
In a speech about the dangers of idealism in politics, one could use this quote to emphasize the potential consequences of striving for a perfect society.
It's easier for the former masters to put aside the masks that hid their humanity than for the former slaves to recognise the faces underneath. Or to trust that this is not a new mask these are wearing.
The gap between the committed and the indifferent is a Sahara whose faint trails, followed by the mind's eye only, fade out in sand.
Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.
Art defies defeat by its very existence, representing the celebration of life, in spite of all attempts to degrade and destroy it.
A truly living human being cannot remain neutral.
The caged eagle become a metaphor for all forms of isolation, the ultimate in imprisonment. A zoo is prison.
The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever-recurring song of retaliation.
It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills.
What we make testifies who we are. People can sense care and can sense carelessness. This relates to respect for each other and carelessness is personally offensive.
We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it.
Our society is dependent on some precarious mechanisms, and they are very dicey. They can easily collapse.
You can't escape the past in Paris, and yet what's so wonderful about it is that the past and present intermingle so intangibly that it doesn't seem to burden.
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