Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges
Christopher Lynn "Chris" Hedgesis an American journalist, activist, author, and Presbyterian minister. Hedges is also known as the best-selling author of several books including War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning—a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction—Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, Death of the Liberal Class, the New York Times best seller, written with cartoonist Joe Sacco, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, and his most recent Wages...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth18 September 1956
CountryUnited States of America
war thinking long
As long as we think abstractly, as long as we find in patriotism and the exuberance of War our fulfillment, we will never understand those who do battle against us, or how we are perceived by them, or finally those who do battle for us and how we should respond to it all. We will never discover who we are. We will fail to confront the capacity we all have for violence.
thinking issues president
The charade of politics is to make voters think that the personal narrative of the candidate affects the operation of the corporate state. It doesn't really matter on the fundamental issues whether the President is Republican or Democratic.
war thinking swings
I think most generations tend to learn the lesson of war the hard way. There is a deep attraction to the empowerment. Freud is right: societies either become locked in a collective embrace of Eros, as individuals do, or a collective embrace of Thanatos, the death instinct. They swing between the two. The notion that societies are naturally prone toward self-preservation is wrong. Self-annihilation can be deeply addictive, intoxicating, enticing. So I take a darker view of human nature, that war is probably always going to be with us. I think history bears me out.
thinking going-away fundamentals
Rebellion is not going to go away...What has been unleashed, I think, can't be stopped...The importance of continuing acts of resistance is that it keeps this narrative alive...We speak a fundamental truth about this system that terrifies them.
thinking needs roles
It is one of the great ironies of corporate control that the corporate state needs the abilities of intellectuals to maintain power, yet outside of this role it refuses to permit intellectuals to think or function independently.
thinking solitude culture
One needs solitude and quiet to think. The cacophony of modern culture is designed to make that impossible...
education mistake thinking
We've bought into the idea that education is about training and "success," defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers. A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death.
caring men thinking
Legitimate rage on the part of working men and women is directed not only towards government but, I think quite correctly, towards liberals, who speak in a very hypocritical language about caring for their interests and yet support institutions that carry out an assault against working men and women.
central duty hidden makeup platitudes suicide war
War is necrophilia. And this necrophilia is central to soldiering, just as it is central to the makeup of suicide bombers and terrorists. The necrophilia is hidden under platitudes about duty or comradeship.
city man point toward
point us away from the city of man toward the city of God.
among armed bear beings confront courage death facing few habit human incapable lands moral pain people return scars suffering summon veterans walking
Very few veterans can return to the battlefield and summon the moral courage to confront what they did as armed combatants. Wallowing in their pain and at times in self-pity, they are often incapable of facing the human suffering and death they inflicted, especially on the defenseless and the weak. They have a habit of disregarding, as they did during the war, the people who live in the lands they brutalized. Walking among the very human beings who bear the scars of war, they see only their own ghosts.
chair perfect sit
the perfect chair to sit in or porridge to taste.
beings force human outcome theft
Rape, mutilation, abuse, and theft are the natural outcome of a world in which force rules, in which human beings are objects.
along believe kid learned remember work
I remember this kid said, 'I can't believe we did all this work to come in second,' ... I wanted to kill him because we learned so much along the way.