The world had already changed before September 11. The world has been going through a process of change over the last 20 or 30 years. A civilization ends, another one begins.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the ongoing nature of change in civilization, suggesting that significant transformations were already in progress prior to key historical events.
Jose Saramago's quote reflects on the concept of change as an ever-present force in human civilization. It implies that before major events like September 11, society was already undergoing profound transformations over the preceding decades. This suggests that change is not just a reaction to singular events, but a continuous evolution that reshapes civilizations over time, often unnoticed until a significant catalyst brings it to the surface.
In practice
In a speech about the evolving nature of society and history.
Why did we become blind, I don't know, perhaps one day we'll find out, Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.
I can't imagine myself outside any kind of social or political involvement. Yes, I'm a writer, but I live in this world, and my writing doesn't exist on a separate level. And if people know who I am and read my books, well, good; that way, if I have something more to say, then everyone benefits.
...you have to leave the island in order to see the island, that we can't see ourselves unless we become free of ourselves, Unless we escape from ourselves you mean, No, that's not the same thing.
Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat.
With the passage of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the color of our blood and the salt of our tears.
En ningún momento de la historia, en ningún lugar del planeta, las religiones han servido para que los seres humanos se acerquen unos a los otros. Por el contrario, sólo han servido para separar, para quemar, para torturar. No creo en dios, no lo necesito y además soy buena persona.
We have always policed the bodies of people of color, and black people in particular. The Jim Crow South is a classic example. White flight in the North. School segregation. Gerrymandering.
Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.
It is a revolution that came to power with its own army and on the ruins of the army of oppression.
We stopped eating meat many years ago. During the course of a Sunday lunch we happened to look out of the kitchen window at our young lambs playing happily in the fields. Glancing down at our plates, we suddenly realized that we were eating the leg of an animal who had until recently been playing in a field herself. We looked at each other and said, "Wait a minute, we love these sheep-they're such gentle creatures. So why are we eating them?" It was the last time we ever did.
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
States are like people. They do not question the awful status quo until some dramatic event overturns the conventional and lax way of thinking.
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