Jews From The United States

"The invasion of government and the courts by behavioral scientists has produced what Thomas Szasz calls “the therapeutic state.” Psychiatrists and social psychologists have been given social status, according to Szasz, and their moral and political judgments, though not always founded on hard, empirical science, are taken to the “expert.” These experts today can affect decisions about the responsibility of criminals, the right to control property, and the custody of children. “Psychiatric theologians” have been able to impose their private political opinions as “scientific” truth, and Szasz cites the fact that the American Psychiatric Association now defines the involuntary treatment and incarceration of mental patients as “health rights.” Szasz also observes, “If people think that health values justify coercion, but that moral and political do not, those who wish to coerce others will tend to enlarge the category of health values at the expense of moral values. “Health values” have also become socialized through a global managerial culture. Since 1976 the United Nations, through its International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights, has elevated “the enjoyment of the highest standard of mental health” to a sacred entitlement. Henceforth governments must ensure a sound state of mind as a “human right.""

"[There is an] obscurantist feature in social scientists trying to combine pluralism with environmentalism. They are so preoccupied with the role of prejudice in creating hostile environments that they perpetually deny the obvious, that stereotypes are rough generalizations about groups derived from long-term observation. Such generalizations are usually correct in describing group tendencies and in predicting certain collective actions, even if they do not adequately account for differences among individuals. Nonetheless, as Goldberg explains, the self-described pluralist and prominent psychologist Gordon Allport went out of his way in The Nature of Prejudice (1954) to reject stereotypes as factually inaccurate as well as socially harmful. For Allport and a great many other social Scientists, nothing is intuitively correct unless it is politically so."

"The competitors of leftist revolutionaries in Italy, Austria, or Hungary after the First World War were not nineteenth-century English Tories or English liberals. It was preeminently the revolutionary Right that performed this oppositional function. Moreover, the fascists did not operate as merely partisan opposition, like Republicans in the United States or the Conservative Party in England. They represented the "political" in the sense in which Carl Schmitt applied that term, namely as an adversary in a life-and-death confrontation between sides that did not view themselves as debating teams on a TV news program."

"We no longer even determine who should be allowed to enter the country and become a citizen since the demand for such control is itself seen as undemocratic; only neo-fascists, as our journalists now tell us, would try to restrict immigration or oppose open borders with third-world countries. A self-restricted political community, as Paul Veyne makes clear, is the mark of ancient and medieval democracies in republics. A government's denial to its citizens of their right to limit citizenship on any grounds they see fit indicates according to Veyne not a democratic but an imperial order, a supernational sovereignty in which the ruler or ruling class allows anyone born or found in that territory to become a subject not a citizen. These remarks (however) are not intended as an endorsement of a return to a racially homogeneous ancient politics I shall leave it to Sam Francis to make that case."

"In Berger's analysis the old Russian order had refused to reform democratically. The result was violent revolution instead of peaceful evolution."

"Victor Luitpold Berger, the first member of the Socialist party ever to sit in a United States Congress, was a disappointment to those who imagined a man of his views to be a bearded, bomb-tossing anarchist haunting the bourgeois world. His life was a model of respectability. It included such unlikely vocations as punching cattle and high-school teaching. As a member of the Sixty-second Congress, 1911-1913, Berger peered at his colleagues in the House of Representatives from behind thin-rimmed spectacles with a bearing that was courteous and dignified to the point of stodginess. The end for Berger was equally respectable: instead of falling behind the barricades clutching the red flag of the proletariat, he was run over by a Milwaukee streetcar!"

"American Magazine declared in 1912 that he was "The sanest and most influential Socialist in this country.""

"It is true that interesting historical document, the Declaration of Independence, says that "all men are born free and equal." But that was not so, even at the time when the sentence was written. It is less so now."

"Like every new phase of civilization, Socialism thus far has received the attention only of the oppressed and the lowly. The opulent and the rich have no reason to wish for a change of the present system. They do not, as a rule, want to hear anything about it. Until of late, outside of the working class, only students of history, of political economy, and a few advanced thinkers have given any attention to the principles of Socialism. Most other persons have only a very vague idea even of its basis."

"The Socialists expect to keep all that is good or useful in the capitalist system and leave it as a heritage to the next generation. And the Socialists will destroy nothing that they can not replace by something better or more beneficial."

"It is foolish to expect results from riots and dynamite, from murderous attacks and conspiracies, in a country where we have the ballot, as long as the ballot has not been given a full and fair trial."

"According to my idea, we shall never reach the millenium. We shall never have any heaven on earth. We shall always have great problems to solve. But we shall have an infinitely higher civilization than we have now."

"After we have taken over the United States Steel Corporation, Mr. Gary, if he wants to keep his job, might possibly do so, but we would not pay him $800,000 a year."

"The working class has nothing to hope from either the Republican party or the Democratic party. It is true that the representatives of these parties may be, and very often are, very cultured and accomplished gentlemen. Most of them are honest. However, they represent the capitalistic system, and the more honest and consistent they are—the more loyal they are to their class."

"Political parties are simply the expression of economic interests."

"I would rather use a hundred years to bring about a new world, a better world, by evolution, with all the blessings of civilization, than bring it about by a bloody revolution, as they have in Russia, by shooting down about 30,000 men and women."

"This is the first instance in the history of the world that the oppressed class has virtually the same political basis as the ruling class."

"This country is divided into classes as much as any monarchial country. Therefore, the working class—the men and women who work either with their brains or their hands—must have a party of their own to take care of their interests of their own class."

"Socialism is the next phase of civilization, if civilization is to survive."

"Unless plutocracy can persuade the majority of the people to close up the public schools and make illiterates of the next generation, and unless it can also persuade them to give up the electoral franchise, plutocracy is doomed. So much is clear. And that is the reason why we Socialists can look with such equanimity and complacence into the future. The future belongs to some form of Socialism."

"It will depend on our rulers whether we shall have an orderly evolution, which I have always preached and propagated, or a violent revolution, which we Socialists have always tried to avoid."

"And even that violent upheaval was only due to the fact that in Russia the autocracy was stupid, ignorant, and corrupt. In Russia the ruling class looked upon government and public trust as nothing but huge sources of profits and plunder. This is also a warning for other countries where the ruling class is ignorant, more or less stupid, and corrupt: where there is constant profiteering, based upon bribery, direct or indirect, by hiring ex-Cabinet members as "attorneys" for big corporations."

"The descriptive Grammar of Sanskrit, which Panini, brought to its high- est perfection, is one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence and (what concerns us more) an indispensable model for description of languages. The only achievement in our field, which can take rank with it is the historical linguistics of the nineteenth century and this indeed owed its origin largely to Europe’s acquaintance with the Indian Grammar. One forgot that the Comparative Grammar of the Indo- European languages got its start only when the Paninian analysis of an Indo-European language became known in Europe. . . . If the accen- tuation of Sanskrit and Greek, for instance had been unknown, Verner could not have discovered the Pre-Germanic sound change, that goes by his name. Indo-European Comparative Grammar had (and has) at its service, only one complete description of a language, the grammar of Panini. For all other Indo-European languages it had only the traditional grammars of Greek and Latin woefully incomplete and unsystematic. (1933: 267–76)"

"As one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence is by no means an exaggeration; no one who has had even a small acquaintance with that most remarkable book could fail to agree. In some four thousand sutras or aphorisms - some of them no more than a single syllable in length - Panini sums up the grammar not only of his own spoken language, but of that of the Vedic period as well. The work is the more remarkable when we consider that the author did not write it down but rather worked it all out of his head, as it were. Panini's disciples committed the work to memory and in tum passed it on in the same manner to their disciples.."

"While in the classical world scholars were dealing with language in a somewhat metaphysical way, the Indians were telling us what their language actually was, how it worked, and how it was put together. The methods and techniques for describing the structure of Sanskrit, which we find in Panini have not been substantially bettered to this day in modem linguistic theory and practice. We today employ many devices in describing languages that were already known to Panini's first two commentators."

"It was in India, however, that there rose a body of knowledge which was destined to revolutionize European ideas about language."

"Wrestling's real, and the world is fake."

"If you’re holding a center puzzle piece in your hand and staring at an empty tabletop, it’s difficult to determine where to place it. If all of the puzzle is complete except for that one piece, then you know exactly where it goes. The same is generally true of art. The more of the work you can see, the easier it becomes to gracefully place the final details clearly where they belong."

"There’s great wisdom in transitional realms between wakefulness and sleep. Right before you fall asleep, what thoughts and ideas come to you? How do you feel when you wake from a dream? [...] Keeping a dream journal might be of use. Place a pen and paper next to the bed, and as soon as you wake up, begin writing immediately with as much detail as possible before doing anything else."

"Living life as an artist is a practice. You can engage in the practice or not. It makes no sense to say you're not good at it. It's like saying, "I'm not good at being a monk." You either live as a monk or not. We tend to think of the artist's work as the output. The artist's real work is a way of being in the world."

"If several directions seem captivating, consider crafting more than one experiment at a time. Working on several often brings about a healthy sense of detachment."

"Making art is a mystical process — a lot of people who are artists don't understand it themselves. Especially the young ones. They feel different, but they don't know what it is. They feel more. Everything hurts. Everything. They're supersensitive. They see things that other people don't see."

"The Beatles are proof of the existence of God."

"I guess edgy things tend to get my attention."

"People, for the sake of their security and ability to plan for the future, need to believe they live in an essentially "just" world where they can get what they deserve, at least in the long run. It was further reasoned that being confronted with innocent victims of undeserved suffering poses a threat to that fundamental belief, and as a consequence, people naturally develop and employ ways of defending it. This may involve acting to eliminate injustices. But failing that, by blaming, rejecting, or avoiding the victim, or having faith that the victim will eventually be appropriately compensated, people are able to maintain their confidence in the justness of the world in which they must live and work for their future security."

"When restoration of injustice is costly, people tend to deny injustice by blaming the victims or by minimizing their hardships and disadvantages. In this manner, BJW-based motivation merges with people's self-interest."

"Decisions that negatively affect others, but that have adhered to all the requirements of rational self-interest, have been seen to result in serious emotional consequences for the decision makers. This regret, reluctance, and guilt, we argue, demonstrate the power of the justice motive."

"Decisions that were rational and justifiable according to social norms nevertheless have been known to leave the decision makers troubled by negative emotional consequences. These individuals, who have gone through great pains to act ethically and responsibly, may subsequently experience entirely unanticipated feelings of guilt, shame, and anger. Logically and ethically, by society’s standards they have done nothing “wrong,” and yet they are reacting as if they suddenly discovered they are responsible for someone’s undeserved suffering."

"Our subconscious processes do not recognize the “lesser of two evils” as a justification. Evil is still evil. To that one should add that the preconscious processes may define anyone who “causes” suffering, even “rationally justified” suffering, as evil."

"displacement has been a common path for Jews throughout history; they’ve always been displaced from one place to another, through diaspora, through a sense of expulsion, not being welcome anymore, being truly forced out."

"there are just a lot of stories that I hope won’t be lost. I want to be sure that this legacy remains, even though it’s a miniature community and maybe not of great interest to everybody in the world. Especially for writers like myself, who come from minority backgrounds—we’re trying to fill in absences or gaps. There was obviously no literature like Tia Fortuna when I was growing up. There’s this very large Jewish Latino community in Miami, but they’re just not represented in literature. I felt that was a gap that I could fill."

"self-interrogation is a special quality of anthropological work, one that we don’t see enough of in fiction. Sometimes in fiction, authors hide or erase the work and interrogation that they may have done to be able to write their novels. But in ethnography, we often include that interrogation within our texts. And to me, that’s an inspiring part of our storytelling."

"In my children’s fiction, I also want to teach them ideas. I don’t want them just to have a story: I’m giving somebody who perhaps knows nothing about Sephardic Jews a sense of that culture. Even if it is a preliminary sense, it’s an affirmation that this culture and these people exist. In that way, I’m bringing my ethnographic work even into a domain like the picture book."

"reading is one of our greatest human treasures, to be passed on from generation to generation, so the world might be a better place for everyone. (Acknowledgements)"

"Contemporary Sephardic writers in Latin America include Ana Maria Shua in Argentina, Isaac Chocrón in Venezuela, Ruth Behar in Cuba, Angelina Muñiz-Huberman, and Rosa Nissan in Mexico, and Victor Perera in Guatemala. They write about Jewish life-Sephardic and otherwise in the modern world."

"“Why is it that bad things have to happen so you learn there are lots of good people in the world?" (Ruthie)"

"“But wherever I go, I know I will feel most at home with the wounded of the world, who hold their heads up high no matter how broken they may seem.”"

"“The only way to deal with fear is to treat it like an unwelcome guest. If you keep entertaining it, you’ll never be rid of it.” (Amara)"

"When we lived in Cuba, I was smart. But when we got to Queens, in New York City, in the United States of America, I became dumb, just because I couldn't speak English. (first lines)"

"Being alive is the best gift of all. (p139)"