Man carries within himself not only his individuality but all of humanity, with all its potentialities, although he can realize these potentialities in only a limited way because of the external limitations of his individual existence.
Goethe, as quoted by Erich Fromm in the introduction to Socialist Humanism: An International Symposium, edited by Erich Fromm (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1966), vii.
I am unable to locate the original source of this quote as Fromm does not provide any citation. Anyone know its provenance?
[I]t is precisely the advantage of the new trend that we do not dogmatically anticipate the world, but only want to find the new world through criticism of the old one… but if constructing the future and settling everything for all times are not our affair, it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.
Karl Marx, Letters from Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, September, 1843 in Collected Works, Volume 3 (New York: International Publishers, 1975), 142-43.
1st Gent. Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves.
2nd Gent. Ay, truly: but I think it is the world
That brings the iron.
George Eliot, Middlemarch (New York: Signet Classics, 1964), 36.
I have implied that the original faith which Luther tried to restore goes back to the basic trust of early infancy. In doing so I have not, I believe, diminished the wonder of what Luther calls God’s disguise. If I assume that it is the smiling face and the guiding voice of infantile parent images which religion projects onto the benevolent sky, I have no apologies to render to an age which thinks of painting the moon red. Peace comes from the inner space.
Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History (New York: W.W. Norton and Co.,1958), 265-66.
Theresa [of Avila]’s passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel, and fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self. She found her epos in the reform of a religious order.
That Spanish woman who lived three hundred years ago was certainly not the last of her kind Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and sank unwept into oblivion. With dim lights and tangled circumstance they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul.
George Eliot, Middlemarch (New York: Signet Classics, 1964), vii-viii. Emphasis added.
Prometheus is the most eminent saint and martyr in the philosophical calendar. - Marx
Today’s read:
Patrick Martin’s article, US political establishment lines up behind Barack Obama, from the World Socialist Website.
The Obama surge is undoubtedly a significant political event, but like any phenomenon in American politics, it has to be analyzed from two standpoints—what it reveals about changes in mass consciousness, and what it reveals about the ongoing policy discussions and political struggles taking place within the ruling elite…
It is necessary to distinguish sharply between the political shift among working people and youth, a movement to the left which presages the outbreak of mass social and political struggles, and the efforts of the ruling elite to manipulate popular sentiments, manufacture illusions, and disarm the masses politically.
The Obama campaign is not the vehicle of a leftward movement in the United States—as proclaimed by liberal groups such as MoveOn.org and publications like The Nation. It is a preemptive attack by the ruling class against such a movement. Its function is to delude the American people and divert their growing opposition to war, economic crisis and attacks on democratic rights back into the dead-end of the Democratic Party…
Obama’s mantra of bringing everyone together may appeal to the naïve illusions of youth who are making their first political experiences, but Obama and the Wall Street bankers and media moguls who are promoting him know exactly what they are doing. Theirs is a conscious policy of blurring social and political differences and denying class divisions in a society more deeply divided along economic lines than ever before in its history…
Read the entire article.
