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Quote by Rebecca Solnit

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Rebecca Solnit
Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit is an American writer known for her works on environmental, cultural, political, and social issues. Her writing spans a wide range of topics, including nature, travel, gender, and power. Her books include 'Wanderlust', 'A Field Guide to Getting Lost', and 'The Faraway Nearby'. more

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“Local and state governments can help civil society by building towns and cities in ways more conducive to neighborliness and community building. Walkability is a big thing. Mixing residential and commercial development would create real neighborhoods where people can walk to the corner store for a gallon of milk and run into their neighbors. It could allow for “third places” like neighborhood pubs, barbershops, and sandwich shops.”

“Civil society is, indeed, composed of individuals, acting freely.... But freedom entails responsibility, founded in the sentiments of sympathy that make us strive to look on our own and others' conduct from the standpoint of the impartial judge. The institutions of law and government exist in order to assign responsibilities and to ensure that they are not evaded or abused. Of course, this is something that liberals [(i.e. classical liberal)] too will acknowledge. But the difference of emphasis is crucial to the conservative position. Conservatism is about freedom, yes. But it is also about the institutions and attitudes that shape the responsible citizen, and ensure that freedom is a benefit to us all. Conservatism is therefore also about the limits to freedom.”

“The Union government from 2014 began systematic harassment and persecution of civil society. This harmed civil society but it also hurt India. NGOs provide the third largest workforce in the United States and more than 10 per cent of all Americans work in an NGO.1 In 24 American states out of 50, NGOs actually employ more workers than all the branches of manufacturing combined. It is similar in the United Kingdom. In Europe, 13 per cent of all jobs are in the NGO sector.2 To put this figure in perspective, consider that less than 10 per cent of all jobs in India are in the formal sector. Surely this was then a sector to be boosted and not obstructed, but obstruct is what Modi did. Through his years, the attack on civil society continued as the first two parts of this chapter will show. The third chronicles the heroic and sustained resistance from marginalised communites: Dalits, Muslims, Adivasis and farmers, which forced the government ultimately to retreat on vital issues.”

“Ліберальний індивідуалізм не унеможливлює і не заперечує людської схильності до спілкування; він просто означає, що соціальна взаємодія в ліберальному суспільстві в ідеалі буде переважно добровільною. Ви можете приєднатися до інших людей, але до яких саме груп — це, наскільки можливо, питання особистого вибору. Саме це створює громадянське су­спільство, яке ми бачимо навколо себе.”

“Завжди існуватимуть жадібні люди. Зрештою вони завжди там, де є (чи мали би бути) гроші. Але жадібні люди шахраюватимуть чи дозволятимуть собі недбало ставитися, лише якщо відчуватимуть, що навряд чи їхній злочин помітять, чи суворо покарають за нього.”

“In the civil society, the individual is recognized and accepted as more than an abstract statistic or faceless member of some group; rather, he is a unique, spiritual being with a soul and a conscience. He is free to discover his own potential and pursue his own legitimate interests, tempered, however, by a moral order that has its foundation in faith and guides his life and all human life through the prudent exercise of judgment.”

“Like the Founders, the Conservative also recognizes in society a harmony of interests, as Adam Smith put it, and rules of cooperation that have developed through generations of human experience and collective reasoning that promote the betterment of the individual and society. This is characterized as ordered liberty, the social contract, or the civil society.”