In these times, the hardest task for social or political activists is to find a way to get people to wonder again about what we all believe is true. The challenge is to sow doubt.
Lawrence LessigRead
And with a practice of writing comes a certain important integrity. A culture filled with bloggers thinks differently about politics or public affairs, if only because more have been forced through the discipline of showing in writing why A leads to B.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing fosters integrity and improves critical thinking in society.
Lawrence Lessig highlights the significance of writing as a practice that cultivates integrity in individuals and a collective consciousness within a culture. He suggests that a community engaged in consistent writing, such as bloggers, develops a deeper understanding of political and public matters, as they are compelled to articulate their reasoning and logic in writing, thereby enhancing their analytical skills and promoting informed discourse.
Themes
WritingIntegrityCultureBloggingPoliticsPublic Affairs
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on the importance of writing, this quote can highlight how blogging influences public opinion.
More from Lawrence Lessig
All quotes →Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables.
Lawrence LessigRead
Believing we know what makes prosperity work, ignoring the nature of the actual prosperity all around, we change the rules within which the Internet revolution lives. These changes will end the revolution.
Lawrence LessigRead
So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in culture that we don't even question when the control of that property removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture democratically.
Lawrence LessigRead
The war against illegal file-sharing is like the church's age-old war against masturbation. It's a war you just can't win.
Lawrence LessigRead
Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device.
Lawrence LessigRead
Similar quotes
The Talented Tenth of the Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people.
W. E. B. Du BoisRead
There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind.
Mary Wortley MontaguRead
Never sit staring at a blank page or screen. If you find yourself stuck, write. Write about the scene you're trying to write. Writing about is easier than writing, and chances are, it will give you your way in.
Laini TaylorRead
If [a student's] college’s endowment portfolio has fossil-fuel stock, then their educations are being subsidized by investments that guarantee they won’t have much of a planet on which to make use of their degree.
Bill MckibbenRead
I look at [books] as a child looks at cakes - with glittering eyes and a watering mouth, imagining the pleasure that awaits him.
Elizabeth GaskellRead
All new learning looks at first like chaos.
Adrienne RichRead