Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Alexis Shotwell

Quote by Alexis Shotwell

“I argue against purism not because I want a devastated world, the Mordor of industrial capitalism emerging as from a closely aligned alternate universe through our floating islands of plastic gradually breaking down into microbeads consumed by the scant marine life left alive after generations of overfishing, bottom scraping, and coral reef–killing ocean acidification; our human-caused, place-devastating elevated sea levels; our earth-shaking, water poisoning fracking; our toxic lakes made of the externalities of rare-earth mineral production for so-called advanced electronics; our soul-and-life destroying prisons; our oil spills; our children playing with bits of dirty bombs; our white phosphorus; our generations of trauma held in the body; our cancers; and I could go on. I argue against purism because it is one bad but common approach to devastation in all its forms. It is a common approach for anyone who attempts to meet and control a complex situation that is fundamentally outside our control. It is a bad approach because it shuts down precisely the field of possibility that might allow us to take better collective action against the destruction of the world in all its strange, delightful, impure frolic. Purism is a de-collectivizing, de-mobilizing, paradoxical politics of despair. This world deserves better.”

Quote by Alexis Shotwell

Book:Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times
Create image

Work

Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Alexis Shotwell

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Alexis Shotwell. more

You May Also Like

“And when hope returns to us, it will be with a passion and power to match every ounce of this crushing despair and pain, every fiery shred of determination that carried us when hope failed. It will claim us with a courage that will make the goddess herself quake and doubt herself.”

LifePainPassionHopeFearLossGriefPowerCourageDoubtFireStrengthDespairSurvivalDeterminationOvercomingBraveryBraveCourageousSurvivorOvercome
Book:Forsaken Kingdom
Create image

“No one wants to occupy a black hole of sadness and despair or slip on the tight rope that separates sanity from insanity, and reside in a vortex devoid of reality. I entered the world as a freeman and desire to escape a state of existential vertigo. I yearn to discover a synthesizing spirit of my being and hold my head high, free of doubt, and devoid of fear. I wish to foment the cerebral energy to stave off premature destruction and forevermore blunt an intolerable state of anguish.”

SufferingSadnessSadDespairInsaneInsanityBlissSanityDesperationAnguishSelf PreservationSadness QuotesTransformation QuotesSelf ProtectionEnlightexistential Crisis
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
Create image

“We live in a world where people believe they have full control of their choices and decisions, but rarely have the holistic knowledge to effectively wield such power.”

Inspirational QuotesMotivational QuotesBusiness QuotesDecision MakingLeadership QuotesLeadership DevelopmentBusiness AdviceBehavioral PsychologyCognitive PsychologyDecisions In Life
Book:The Irrational Mind: How To Fight Back Against The Hidden Forces That Affect Our Decision Making
Create image

“Just as the weak, despairing person is unwilling to hear anything about any consolation eternity has for him, so a person in such despair does not want to hear anything about it, either, but for a different reason: this very consolation would be his undoing; as a denunciation of all existence. Figuratively speaking, it is as if an error slipped into an author's writing and the error became conscious of itself as an error; perhaps it actually was not a mistake but in a much higher sense an essential part of the whole production, and now this error wants to mutiny against the author, out of hatred toward him, forbidding him to correct it and in maniacal defiance saying to him: No! I refuse to be erased! I will stand as a witness against you; a witness that you are a second-rate author.”

PhilosophyDespairExistentialistKierkegaardExistenitalismSøren Kierkegaard
Book:The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening
Create image

“Why?' says the boy. 'Why? Because staying alive is more important than anything else.' 'Why is staying alive more important than anything?' He is about to answer, about to produce the correct, patient, educative words, when something wells up inside him. Anger? No. Irritation? No: more than that. Despair? Perhaps: despair in one of its minor forms. Why? Because he would like to believe he is guiding the child through the maze of the moral life when, correctly, patiently, he answers his unceasing 'Why' questions. But where is there any evidence that the child absorbs his guidance or even hears what he says? He stops where he is on the busy sidewalk. Inés and the boy stop too, and stare at him in puzzlement. 'Think of it in this way,' he says. 'We are tramping through the desert, you and Inés and I. You tell me you are thirsty and I offer you a glass of water. Instead of drinking the water you pour it out in the sand. You say you thirst for answers: 'Why this? Why that?' I, because I am patient, because I love you, offer you an answer each time, which you pour away in the sand. Today, at last, I am tired of offering you water. 'Why is staying alive important?' If life does not seem important to you, so be it.' Inés raises a hand to her mouth in dismay. As for the boy, his face sets in a frown. 'You say you love me but you don't love me,' he says. 'You just pretend.”

EducationDespairPatience
Book:The Childhood of Jesus
Create image