quotables

i've been reading the book the dignity of difference by jonathan sacks for one of my classes. it's a very provocative book. i'm glad to get the chance to read it, whether it be for class or of my own choosing. anyways, i'm halfway through it and there are already a number of interesting lines that i thought i'd share (out of context but still thought-provoking):

"bad things happen when the pace of change exceeds our ability to change, and events move fster than our understanding."

"the pursuit of peace can come to seem to be a kind of betrayal. it involves compromise. it means settling for less than one would like. it has none of the purity and clarity of war, in which the issues -- self-defense, national honor, patriotism, pride -- are unambiguous and compelling. war speaks to our most fundamental sense of identity: there is an 'us' and a 'them' and no possibility of confusing hte two. when, though, enemies shake hands, who is now the 'us' and who the 'them'? peace involves a profound crisis of identity."

"television and the internet have effectively abolished distance. they have brought images of suffering in far-off lands into our immediate experience. our sense of compassion for the victims of poverty, war and famine, runs ahead of our capacity to act. our moral sense is simultaneously activated and frustrated. we feel that something should be done, but what and how and by whom?"

"globalization is profoundly destablilzing....face with a change, those who feel threatened by it turn to religion as a source of stability, an expression of the things that do not change....most importantly, no other system does what religion has traditionally undertaken to do, namely to offer an explanation of who we are and why, of our place in the universe and the meaning of events as they unfold around us."

" religion and politics speak to different aspects of the human condition: the one to binding people together in communities, the other to mediating peacably between their differences."

"there is no road to human solidarity that does not begin with moral particularity....we learn to love humanity by loving specific human beings."

"change has become systemic. it no longer takes place within a frame of things that do not change."

"morality is integral to the ecology of hope because it locates social change at a level at which we can make a difference through the acts we do, the principles by which we live, and the relationships we create. it sees us as something other than replaceable parts of an economic system; it grants us a form of independence from the whims and passing interests of others."