How is the United States at once the most conservative and commercial AND the most revolutionary society on Earth?
Interpretation
The quote highlights the paradox of American identity as both traditional and innovative.
Christopher Hitchens points out a unique characteristic of the United States, suggesting that it embodies a duality where it maintains conservative values and commercial interests while simultaneously fostering a spirit of revolution and change. This complexity reflects the diverse nature of American society, where historical traditions coexist with a continuous push for progress and reform.
In practice
During a discussion on American culture, one could reference Hitchens' quote to illustrate the complexity of the country's identity.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way β because itβs had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But youβve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
The metaphor is so obvious. Easter Island isolated in the Pacific Ocean β once the island got into trouble, there was no way they could get free. There was no other people from whom they could get help. In the same way that we on Planet Earth, if we ruin our own [world], we won't be able to get help.
Realise this: one day your soul_x000D_ will depart from your body and you will_x000D_ be drawn behind the curtain that floats between us_x000D_ and the unknown. While you wait for that moment, be happy,_x000D_ because you don't know where you came from and_x000D_ you don't know where you will be going.
Know, therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return... Forget not that I shall come back to you... A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.
We know that we are not collectively guilty, so how can we accuse any other nation, no matter what some of its people have done, of being collectively guilty?
Begin with dhyana, with meditation, and end in samadhi, in ecstasy, and you will know what God is. It is not a hypothesis, it is an experience. You have to LIVE it - that is the only way to know it.
It is this third consequence that has been elaborated in greatest detail and has formed one of the most significant pillars of historical capitalism, institutional racism.
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