"I'm probably only going to post quotes here"

“I shall in the future again and again draw your attention to what I shall call language games. These are ways of using signs simpler than those in which we use the signs of our highly complicated everyday language. Language games are the forms of language with which a child begins to make use of words. The study of language games is the study of primitive forms of language or primitive languages. If we want to study the problems of truth and falsehood, of the agreement and disagreement of propositions with reality, of the nature of assertion, assumption, and question, we shall with great advantage look at primitive forms of language in which these forms of thinking appear without the confusing background of highly complicated processes of thought. When we look at such simple forms of language the mental mist which seems to enshroud our ordinary use of language disappears. We see activities, reactions, which are clear-cut and transparent.”

“I’m not saying our students just prefer genre books or graphic novels or whatever. No, our average graduate literally could not read a serious adult novel cover-to-cover and understand what they read. They just couldn’t do it. They don’t have the desire to try, the vocabulary to grasp what they read, and most certainly not the attention span to finish. For them to sit down and try to read a book like The Overstory might as well be me attempting an Iron Man triathlon: much suffering with zero chance of success.”

“We are at a moment right now where people are asking themselves why can’t the Democratic Party defend this assault on democracy … and I would submit to you that if you can’t draw the line at genocide, you probably can’t draw the line at democracy.”

“The conception of human rights based upon the assumed existence of a human being as such, broke down at the very moment when those who professed to believe in it were for the first time confronted with people who had indeed lost all other qualities and specific relationships—except that they were still human.”

“The deaths of Palestinians—now numbering over 50,000—are widely reported by mainstream media outlets, yet rarely do they mention that this is not a war in the traditional sense, but a genocide, carried out, financed, and defended by Israel and Western powers for domestic political reasons. Palestinians continue to resist because it is their only option in the face of utter destruction and extermination.”

“Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.”

“One effect of Trump’s campaign to “Make America Great Again” is that he is very good at showing what already has made America great—by attempting to destroy it. American universities are a wonder of the world. Republicans and Democrats have supported federal funding for decades. Long before that, the government invested in building and spreading universities from state to state, recognizing their fundamental importance to the nation. During the Revolution itself, Founders set aside time and money for archival research.”

“Society is held together by our need; we bind it together with legend, myth, coercion, fearing that without it we will be hurled into that void, within which, like the earth before the Word was spoken, the foundations of society are hidden. From this void—ourselves—it is the function of society to protect us; but it is only this void, our unknown selves, demanding, forever, a new act of creation, which can save us—‘from the evil that is in the world.’ With the same motion, at the same time, it is this toward which we endlessly struggle and from which, endlessly, we struggle to escape.”

“Many of the programs Donald Trump and Elon Musk are slashing are great collective achievements of American society. Those programs show our incredible capacity to achieve a better country and world together.”

“In 1933, after the people had rejected Hoover’s plan to let the Depression burn itself out, President-elect Roosevelt asked Perkins to serve as Secretary of Labor in his administration. She accepted only on the condition that he back her goals: unemployment insurance, health insurance, old-age insurance, a 40-hour work week, a minimum wage, and abolition of child labor. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’” She promised to find out.”

“Let’s cast a vision. Let’s imagine what a new community, new networks, a new boldness might look like. Let’s cross denominational boundaries and national borders and invite those inside and outside faith traditions to participate. Let’s not just stand against the powers of Christian nationalism and oligarchy and the erosion of democracy and denigration of justice, empathy, and care. Let’s stand for truth and beauty and goodness. Let’s root ourselves in the strongest intellectual and spiritual traditions, let’s embrace humility and hold together across difference. Let’s create spaces for creative learning, and for genuine community.”

“I offer you this by way of example. A building is on fire and you’re watching it burn, standing and wondering if everyone is safe. Then someone tells you that your mother and your sister are inside that building. Your attitude changes completely. You’re frantic; your mother and sister are burning and you’d do anything to rescue them even at the cost of getting charred. That’s what it means to be truly committed. If we look at poverty from the outside, as if we’re looking at a fire, that’s not to opt for the poor, no matter how concerned we may be. We should get inside as if our own mother and sister were burning. Indeed it’s Christ who is there, hungry and suffering.”

“To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity. But this also means: to be taught.”

“My core theses — The Rot Economy (that the tech industry has become dominated by growth), The Rot-Com Bubble (that the tech industry has run out of hyper-growth ideas), and that generative AI has created a kind of capitalist death cult where nobody wants to admit that they’re not making any money — are far from comfortable.”

“Generative AI has laid bare exactly how little the markets think about ideas, and how willing the powerful are to try and shove something unprofitable, unsustainable and questionably-useful down people’s throats as a means of promoting growth.”

“I want to remind each other of what’s most important and least popular right now: humility, curiosity, mercy and hope - the things Jesus of Nazareth yammered on about and were as difficult to embrace then as they are now.”