"The anarchist ethic of the equality of unequals shatters the dehumanizing notion promulgated under capitalism that everything, including each person, is exchangeable—equally a commodity, and thus without inherent worth—replacing it with the rehumanizing concept of the value of each individual. It gives qualitative meaning to justice. Under representative democracies, justice is blind to the uniqueness of each person and the specificity of their circumstances. Particularities aren't weighed, and "justice" is meted out in vastly unjust ways. Within anarchism, being just entails being clear-eyed about the differences between people and their situations, which in turn makes it at least possible to negotiate personal and social relations, including conflicts, in ways that are substantively fair. Everyone and everything has equal value, and should equally be provided sustenance in order to fully blossom."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Anarchists from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesPolitical authors from the United StatesWomen authors from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 52
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cindy_Milstein
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Cindy Milstein
Cindy Milstein is an American anarchist activist based in Brooklyn. They have also been involved with the Institute for Social Ecology, and are currently a board member with the Institute for Anarchist Studies and a co-organizer of the Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference. Milstein speaks regularly in public, at anarchist conferences and bookfairs as well as radical spaces, including the Finding Our Roots conference, the Unschooling Oppression conference, the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair,
93 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Cindy Milstein →
Related Quotes
"I've never been at home in this world, though. That's why I fight so fiercely for other possible ones. That's why, as…"
"At its core, anarchism is indeed a spirit—one that cries out against all that's wrong with present-day society, and b…"
""We're only human," the saying goes, but our humanity is profoundly damaged by the alienated world of control that we…"
"Anarchism serves unflinchingly as a philosophy of freedom, as the nagging conscience that people and their communitie…"
"There are many different though often complementary ways of looking at anarchism, but in a nutshell, it can be define…"
"Anarchism is a synthesis of the best of liberalism and the best of communism, elevated and transformed by the best of…"
"Anarchism understood that any egalitarian form of social organization, especially one seeking a thoroughgoing eradica…"
"From the start, anarchism was an open political philosophy, always transforming itself in theory and practice. This, …"
"For centuries, people grew up believing, in essence, that reason was only to be gleaned from the word of a monarch an…"
"You only feel pain and grief over things you love and care about."