Carl Hitchens - tracking the self …
Carl Hitchens - tracking the self …
2011
“Politics is throwing a bunch of acorns into a bag and shaking it. The acorns crash around and bang into each other, changing positions in the bag after each shaking. By virtue of the bag’s size, there is always one group at the top and one at the bottom.
“The acorns, of course, are the people of a society. The bag is the sum total of a society’s consciousness, made from individual fibers that correspond to each person’s awareness. The shaking is the exertion of social forces. The size of the bag is equal to the breadth of society’s self-identification. The more self-centered, self-involved, or indifferent each person or group is, the smaller the bag. The acorns are squeezed into a tighter space, where individual religion, philosophy, ideology, race, ethnicity, gender, or just plain following-my-own-drumbeat compete for the air at the summit.”
The Acorn Effect
6/16/11