March 1, 2011
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"You asked me why I quit the Movement. I had a lot of good reasons. One was myself, and another was my comrades, and the last was the breed of swine called men in general. For myself, I was forced to admit, at the end of thirty years' devotion to the Cause, that I was never made for it. I was born condemned to be one of those who has to see all sides of a question. When you're damned like that, the questions multiply for you until in the end it's all question and no answer. As history proves, to be a worldly success at anything, especially revolution, you have to wear blinders like a horse and see only straight in front of you. You have to see, too, that this is all black, and that is all white. As for my comrades in the Great Cause, I felt as Horace Walpole did about England, that he could love it if it weren't for the people in it. The material the ideal free society must be constructed from is men themselves and you can't build a marble temple out of a mixture of mud and manure. When man's soul isn't a sow's ear, it will be time enough to dream of silk purses."
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The character Larry Slade (ex-anarchist) in Eugene O'Neill's - "The Iceman Cometh"
Comments (12)
I'm going to have to read that book.
oh my goodness, i'm going to have a relook at that profile pic. it did me a jumpstart. = ) and i'm going to be thinking about this post. my brain is mush right now it's been one of those nights.
I may have to pick that up
what movement did he quit and did he really quit?
you're gay, phil.
@andiote - you wish, andrew.
does this apply to xanga... somehow?
@Peridot21 - with exceptions, probably.
This makes me think about religion and responsibility. Also, I pictured a small female-child who wears a mustache because it's been proven to her that mustaches are right (regardless of the fact that– despite all of their presentation of very logical evidence –the hairy lip cover just doesn't feel very noble...)
Sow's ear? Pearls before swine, eh?
Great excerpt.
It reminds me of when I was on trial team and we had to prepare both sides of the case. You didn't learn until you were in front of the judges which side you had to advocate. It forced us to look at the matter from all directions, which is something I tend to do on my own in most matters of life by nature. I hate personality tests that want yes or no answers. I want to write an essay answer with some version of "it's case specific" for each question.