Du Bois marked a great stage in the history of Negro struggles when he said that Negroes could no longer accept the subordination which Booker T. Washington had preached.
C. L. R. JamesRead
Property-owners are the most energetic flag-waggers and patriots in every country, but only so long as they enjoy their possessions: to safeguard those they desert God, King and Country in a twinkling.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that property owners often prioritize their possessions over loyalty to their country or ideals.
C. L. R. James critiques the behavior of property owners, implying that their patriotism is conditional and largely driven by self-interest. When their possessions are threatened, their allegiance to God, King, and Country can quickly fade, revealing the superficial nature of their loyalty. This observation serves as a reflection on how material wealth can influence personal values and societal responsibilities.
In practice
During a discussion on political priorities in a community meeting.
Du Bois marked a great stage in the history of Negro struggles when he said that Negroes could no longer accept the subordination which Booker T. Washington had preached.
Technological discoveries are the spermatozoa of social change.
One of the surest signs of the estimated changes in the consciousness of the American proletariat is to be found in the character of the demands now being put forward by the leadership.
Capitalism has socialized production. It has brought thousands of people together in the factory and involved them in new social relationships.
I was a Labour Party man but I found myself to the left of the Labour party in Nelson, militant as that was. I came to London and in a few months I was a Trotskyist.
Today, in American imperialism, the commodity has reached its most grandiose historical manifestation.
A church without women would be like the apostolic college without Mary. The Madonna is more important than the apostles, and the church herself is feminine, the spouse of Christ and a mother.
We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway of our virtue.
The word in language is half someone else’s… it exists in other people’s mouths, in other people’s contexts, serving other people’s intentions: it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one’s own.
The human wish to credit good things as miraculous and to charge bad things to another account is apparently universal.
Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.
People don't realize that now is all there ever is; there is no past or future except as memory or anticipation in your mind.
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