We are living in the most destructive and, hence, the
most stupid period of the history of our species.
The list of its
undeniable abominations is long and hardly bearable. And these
abominations are not balanced or compensated or atoned for by the list,
endlessly reiterated, of our scientific achievements. Some people are
moved, now and again, to deplore one abomination or another. Others…
deplore the whole list and its causes. Much protest is naive;
it expects quick, visible improvement and despairs and gives up when
such improvement does not come. Protesters who hold out longer have
perhaps understood that success is not the proper goal.
If protest depended on success, there would be little protest of any
durability or significance. History simply affords too little evidence
that anyone’s individual protest is of any use. Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.
Wendell Berry
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