I tend to think that knowledge is preceded by power instead of the other way around. Zephyr Teachout More Quotes by Zephyr Teachout More Quotes From Zephyr Teachout What happens in New York affects national policy in very significant ways. Zephyr Teachout significant new-york way It's a lot harder to push forward things, like energy policy. There's a big dream out there about wind and solar power. Zephyr Teachout energy dream wind I feel much more comfortable in politics than I did in book writing. Book writing is so hard. Politics felt easy compared to that. Zephyr Teachout easy writing book There's a tendency, especially among academics, to see politics as deeply dirty and deeply egotistical. Zephyr Teachout egotistical tendencies dirty I think about people and events in terms of archetypes a lot. Zephyr Teachout events people thinking What I see increasingly is that companies are playing political roles. We should actually have our research and our laws map that. Zephyr Teachout roles political law You can have very big local government. By big, I mean very engaged government. Do you measure it in terms of the number of laws? Number of employees? You could make arguments for either one. I tend to think the axis of the size of government is the wrong concern. But I do think that situating power more locally is a legitimate approach. Zephyr Teachout government mean thinking There are some libertarians who are really anarchists, but others are more concerned about the distant relationship between themselves and power. They mistakenly think they want to get rid of government when instead they might just want to have greater access to power. Zephyr Teachout government want thinking I think part of the reason the Tea Party has resonated is that people feel disempowered. The Tea Party says, "You are out of power because of big government." Then some Democrats tend to respond by saying, "No, you're wrong, you're not out of power." It's a sense that doesn't resonate with people's lived experience. Zephyr Teachout party government thinking A lot of politics plays at the level of myth, and if you understand that, then you feel like you have access to the secret language of politics. Zephyr Teachout levels secret play History is a series of mistakes. Now the task is to plan for those mistakes so those of us who are populists can actually take over the reins of power when the right mistakes are made. Zephyr Teachout tasks made mistake As a school board member, I might have particular views about the ways we might increase the economics curriculum in a local high school, but I'm not sure I should mandate that for the entire country. Zephyr Teachout views country school You can't just provide power, you also need public education. Zephyr Teachout public-education needs Because jurors have an extraordinary amount of power over the situation and of the people and the story in front of them, they tend to pay pretty intense attention to what's happening. Zephyr Teachout stories attention people I tend to be a kind of left federalist. There's a value to more power of certain kinds being positioned at a more local level. Zephyr Teachout certain levels kind I think a lot of the reason people are attracted to the Keystone pipeline is because at least we're doing something. There's a fear that society will collapse if it's not acting. To contrast those actions with other actions is important in making it feel plausible. Maybe we must have the size of the dream meet the size of the threat. Zephyr Teachout dream people thinking A combination of working in politics as well as teaching and being [an actor] certainly helped. I became so much more comfortable in front of a crowd. I felt like I was calling on all those other experiences. Zephyr Teachout actors teaching calling Integrity is hard work. I do think the Internet makes it harder because of the temptations of performance. You can perform and have integrity, but it's easier just to perform. Zephyr Teachout hard-work integrity thinking Having more candidates come with a creative and artistic sensibility would actually bring more people out to vote. Zephyr Teachout artistic creative people There is a rising and very important populism, talking about money in politics, talking about trade, talking about economic issues, within the party, and across the board, there has been a serious rethinking of trade, rethinking of big banks, rethinking of monopolies that have too much power. Zephyr Teachout politics
