Everyone has an equal right to inequality. John Ralston Saul More Quotes by John Ralston Saul More Quotes From John Ralston Saul Dictionary: Opinion presented as truth in alphabetical order. John Ralston Saul teaching teacher order The citizen's job is to be rude - to pierce the comfort of professional intercourse by boorish expressions of doubt. John Ralston Saul rude expression jobs Bankers - pillars of society who are going to hell if there is a God and He has been accurately quoted. John Ralston Saul if-there-is-a-god political bankers Unregulated competition is a naive metaphor for anarchy. John Ralston Saul anarchy metaphor competition Freedom - an occupied space which must be reoccupied every day. John Ralston Saul space Armaments; extremely useful for fighting wars, a deadweight in any civil economy. John Ralston Saul economy fighting war The most powerful force possessed by the individual citizen is her own government. ... Government is the only organized mechanism that makes possible that level of shared disinterest known as the public good. John Ralston Saul individuality government powerful Born in elevators and supermarkets, Muzak has spread to restaurants, hotels, airplanes, telephone hold services, and waiting rooms. The public-relations experts believe that human beings fear silence - that is, the absence of constantly imposed direction. It is further believed that if we can be relieved of our fears, we will gain enough self-confidence to buy, eat, vote, fly, or simply go on living. John Ralston Saul self-confidence airplane believe A foreigner is an individual who is considered either comic or sinister. When the victim of a disaster - preferably natural but sometimes political -the foreigner may also be pitied from a distance for a short period of time. John Ralston Saul distance political may Happy Hour: a depressing comment on the rest of the day and a victory for the most limited Dionysian view of human nature. John Ralston Saul depressing views happiness Educating the masses was intended only to improve the relationship between the top and the bottom of society. Not for changing the nature of the relationship. John Ralston Saul unschooling bottom mass We must discover how to ask simple questions of ourselves. John Ralston Saul asks simple Rights are a protection from society. But only by fulfilling their obligations to society can the individual give meaning to that protection. John Ralston Saul protection rights giving In general, democracy and individualism have advanced in spite of and often against specific economic interest. Both democracy and individualism have been based upon financial sacrifice, not gain. Even in Athens, a large part of the 7,000 citizens who participated regularly in assemblies were farmers who had to give up several days' work to go into town to talk and listen. John Ralston Saul sacrifice democracy giving-up They (the novelists) became the voice of the citizen against the ubiquitous raison d'état, which reappeared endlessly to justify everything from unjust laws and the use of child labour to incompetent generalship and inhuman conditions on warships. John Ralston Saul voice men children The faithful witness, like...Socrates, Voltaire, and Swift and Christ himself, is at his best when he is questioning and clarifying and avoiding the specialists obsession with solution. He betrays society when he is silent...He is true to himself and to people when his clarity causes disquiet. John Ralston Saul faithful causes people Management cannot solve problems. Nor can it stir creativity of any sort. It can only manage what it is given. If asked to do more, it will deform whatever is put into its hands. John Ralston Saul creativity management hands Of course, corporations and governments have a right to something for their money. They pay the wages. But they don't have the ethical right to literally purchase the copyright of a citizen's potential contribution to society. In a democracy they should not have the legal right to silence the quasi-totality of the functioning élite in order to satisfy a managerial taste for control and secrecy. John Ralston Saul government silence order Wordsmiths who serve established power...castrate the public imagination by subjecting language to a complexity which renders it private. Elitism is always their aim. John Ralston Saul aim language imagination It is the considered opinion of most members of our rational élites that, in any given difference of opinion with reality, reality is wrong. John Ralston Saul opinion differences reality
