John Ralston Saul
John Ralston Saul
John Ralston Saul, CC OOntis a Canadian award-winning philosopher, novelist and essayist. He is a long-term champion of freedom of expression and was the International President of PEN International, until October 2015. Saul is the co-founder and co-chair of the non-profit Institute for Canadian Citizenship, a national charity promoting the inclusion of new citizens. His life bridges Canada's arts community and its military and government institution...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth19 June 1947
CountryCanada
giving-up sacrifice democracy
In general, democracy and individualism have advanced in spite of and often against specific economic interest. Both democracy and individualism have been based upon financial sacrifice, not gain. Even in Athens, a large part of the 7,000 citizens who participated regularly in assemblies were farmers who had to give up several days' work to go into town to talk and listen.
running democracy natural
If allowed to run free of the social system, capitalism will attempt to corrupt and undermine democracy, which is after all not a natural state.
civilization democracy needs
The best defence [for a democracy, for the public good] is aggressiveness, the aggressiveness of the involved citizen. We need to reassert that slow, time-consuming, inefficient, boring process that requires our involvement; it is called 'being a citizen.' The public good is not something that you can see. It is not static. It is a process. It is the process by which democratic civilizations build themselves.
self civilization democracy
Our civilization is locked in the grip of an ideology - corporatism. An ideology that denies and undermines the legitimacy of individuals as the citizen in a democracy. The particular imbalance of this ideology leads to a worship of self-interest and a denial of the public good. The practical effects on the individual are passivity and conformism in the areas that matter, and non-conformism in the areas that don't
acceptance self democracy
The acceptance of corporatism causes us to deny and undermine the legitimacy of the individual as citizen in a democracy. The result of such a denial is a growing imbalance which leads to our adoration of self-interest and our denial of the public good.
case deal died either god sees unlikely
Either God is alive, in which case he'll deal with us as he sees fit. Or he is dead, in which case he was never alive, it being unlikely that he died of old age.
money people start trouble
You can always tell you're in deep trouble when people start thinking money's real.
cheating religious boys
Moral crusade: Public activity undertaken by middle-aged men who are cheating on their wives or diddling little boys. Moral crusades are particularly popular among those seeking power for their own personal pleasure, politicians who can't think of anything useful to do with their mandates, and religious professionals suffering from a personal inability to communicate with their god.
silly men civilization
There is something silly about grown men and women striving to reduce their vision of themselves and of civilization to bean counting.
enthusiasm united-states given
United States:. A nation given either to unjustified over-enthusiasms or infantile furies.
mass unschooling bottom
Educating the masses was intended only to improve the relationship between the top and the bottom of society. Not for changing the nature of the relationship.
simple asks
We must discover how to ask simple questions of ourselves.
country hard-work army
Obviously we don't have 300 million people. We haven't got a big army. We don't have Hollywood. We're a medium small-sized country. We have to do what medium small-sized countries do, which-even though we're not smarter than other people-is to make ourselves seem to be smarter. We have to work harder and know more than other people.
stars vocabulary personality
After a period in which technocrats attempted to become stars and stars to become politicians, the political void has been occupied by the force of mediocrity, which can easily master enough of the star techniques to produce inoffensive personalities and enough of the rational vocabulary to create the sounds of competence.