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Quote by Paul Farmer

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Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor

Pathologies of Power delves into the complex relationship between health and human rights, analyzing the effects of societal policies on vulnerable populations. The author critically assesses the challenges faced by the poor in accessing healthcare and the broader implications of power imbalances in these areas. more

Author

Paul Farmer
Paul Farmer

Paul Farmer is an American medical anthropologist born on October 26, 1959. He has had a profound impact in the field of global health, particularly in the research and policy of tropical diseases and public health. Farmer is known for his work in providing medical services and advocating for social justice in impoverished areas. more

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“Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round . . . The sky is round and I have heard the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind in its greatest power whirls, birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. Our teepees were round like the nests of birds. And they were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop.”

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“The defect of democracy is its tendency to put mediocrity into power; and there is no way of avoiding this except by limiting office to men of "trained skill". Numbers by themselves cannot produce wisdom, and may give the best favors of office to the grossest flatterers. "The fickle disposition of the multitude almost reduces those who have experience of it to despair; for it is governed solely by emotions, and not be reason." Thus democratic government becomes a procession of brief-lived demagogues, and men of worth are loath to enter lists where they must be judged and rated by their inferiors. Sooner or later the more capable men rebel against such a system, though they be in a minority. "Hence I think it is that democracies change into aristocracies, and these at length into monarchies"; people at last prefer tyranny to chaos. Equality of power is an unstable condition men are by nature unequal; and "he who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.”

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