I think the imagination helps us move out of the purely oppositional mentality and see the world in a richer and more variegated way. Martha C. Nussbaum More Quotes by Martha C. Nussbaum More Quotes From Martha C. Nussbaum When I came to Harvard, there were no tenured women except one, who was in a chair reserved for a woman. It's still an uphill battle, and I encountered great sexism in parts of my career, but I have to say that things are a lot better than they used to be. There are many women today doing wonderful work all over the academy. Martha C. Nussbaum battle careers today With the rise of capitalism, it became more obvious that people pursue individual self-interest. The great nationalist in Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini, a wonderful philosopher, said that we need the nation. We need something that people can lean on, from which they can then reach out to the whole world. The idea of all humanity is too vague. It can't motivate human aspiration in a reliable way. Martha C. Nussbaum self people ideas It's not as though there aren't many, many art works and many other cultures, but there was something special about the civic nature of the Greek theater. All the citizens stopped working. They came into these theaters. It wasn't like a Broadway theater where you sit in the dark and you expect to be passively entertained. You're in this theater, amphitheater, in bright sunlight looking at your fellow citizens, recognizing their faces, and thinking with them about the future of your city. I think very few cultures have had a theatrical tradition that is quite so civic. Martha C. Nussbaum dark art thinking In our swamp of media sensationalism and group-speak, BOSTON REVIEW stands out as a bold voice for reason and argument, one of the very, very few places that offers intelligence, integrity, and variety. Martha C. Nussbaum boston media integrity People have a deep need to be legislators, and the idea of autonomy has become very precious. Martha C. Nussbaum people ideas needs There are no general-interest media that all of us can tap into. I'm not a good person to talk to about social media. I just avoid it. I'm suspicious also of the culture of venting. But the bigger question is, How can we in this media world have a genuine civic conversation? I mean, look at Franklin Roosevelt. He had these radio talks that all Americans listened to, and there was a common civic conversation that came out of it. Martha C. Nussbaum media mean world It's a good thing that we're protected by tenure and academic freedom, but we should realize that it creates a risk of getting cut off. Scholars should write, at least sometimes, for the general public. Martha C. Nussbaum academic-freedom cutting writing The thing that I find so bad about anger is the desire for payback. Of course, it is very human to wish for revenge. Your mother has died in the hospital, and the first thought a lot of people have is, I'll sue the doctor. You feel helpless, and you think, I'm less helpless if I'm doing something active that makes someone else pay. And social media make it easy to inflict all kinds of pain on other people. But what good does it do? Martha C. Nussbaum pain revenge mother The GDP approach doesn't address many aspects of human life: health, education, political liberty, religious liberty, employment opportunities. And these are not all that well correlated with gross domestic product. We also have to think about equality among groups. And freedom of speech and religion. China always ranks near the top of developing countries these days, but there are lots of things we might see as lacking in China. Martha C. Nussbaum religious country thinking I think that's what we really need in America, for people to hear each other. And I think philosophy could do a little bit better on that. Martha C. Nussbaum philosophy america thinking Today, I think, the state of philosophizing about democracy is very healthy. It bridges political science and philosophy, as it should. Martha C. Nussbaum bridges philosophy thinking After all, the nation is not just an entity. It's a story. It's a story of what's salient, what brought us together, what we are willing to live and die for. Martha C. Nussbaum entity stories together If you really do want to increase women's status, you could focus on just that, but you'd probably better focus also on women's education. Access to artificial contraception, I would say, is also a very important determinant of women's status. Martha C. Nussbaum focus important want I am a very big fan of the nation, actually. In Cicero's time, there was this idea that although we were members of the whole world of human beings, we also needed to connect our imaginations to a smaller unit. The smaller unit was something we knew we could live or die for, as Cicero died for the Roman republic. Martha C. Nussbaum fans imagination ideas The EU might have become a large federal nation. But they would have had to do things differently. Number one, they would've had to make people feel like participants in a common project of autonomous law-giving. Much more political accountability, much more participation. That didn't happen, I think, because the movers and shakers were more concerned with economic union than political union. Martha C. Nussbaum law numbers thinking People don't just want to feel satisfied. They actually want to act. Martha C. Nussbaum satisfied want people TV has a lot of problems, but I think the Internet and social media have a lot more. Under the cover of anonymity people say the most vicious things. Martha C. Nussbaum media people thinking Notice that all the traditional things philosophers do, looking for validity and soundness, promote civic friendship. That sounds pretty pie in the sky, yes, but I actually believe it. Martha C. Nussbaum pie sky believe I think we need government to play a part in having a health policy that makes nursing care available for the increasing numbers who are going to need it. Martha C. Nussbaum nursing play thinking You have to pay so much to see theater, even in Chicago. In the Greek theater, you didn't have to pay anything. You actually had to go, and you just sat there all day. Martha C. Nussbaum chicago greek pay
