Always Strive To Excel, But Only On

A Talent For Speaking Differently, Rather Than For Arguing Well Is The Chief Instrument Of Cultural Change.

There Are Credentials For Admission To Our Democratic Society [...]. You Have To Be Educated In Order To Be A Participant In Our Conversation So We Are Going To Go Right On Trying To Discredit You In The Eyes Of Your Children, Trying To Strip Your Fundamentalist Religious Community Of Dignity, Trying To Make Your Views Seem Silly Rather Than Discussable. We Are Not So Inclusivist As To Tolerate Intolerance Such As Yours.

Freedom Is The Recognition Of Contingency.

Philosophers Get Attention Only When They Appear To Be Doing Something Sinister - Corrupting The Youth, Undermining The Foundations Of Civilization, Sneering At All We Hold Dear. The Rest Of The Time Everybody Assumes That They Are Hard At Work Somewhere Down In The Sub-basement, Keeping Those Foundations In Good Repair. Nobody Much Cares What Brand Of Intellectual Duct Tape Is Being Used.

[walt] Whitman And [humanist Educator John] Dewey Tried To Substitute Hope For Knowledge. They Wanted To Put Shared Utopian Dreams - Dreams Of An Ideally Decent And Civilized Society - In The Place Of Knowledge Of God's Will, Moral Law, The Laws Of History, Or The Facts Of Science.... As Long As We Have A Functioning Political Left, We Still Have A Chance To Achieve Our Country, To Make It The Country Of Whitman's And Dewey's Dreams.