Insofar as ideological thinking is independent of existing reality, it looks upon all factuality as fabricated, and therefore no longer knows any reliable criterion for distinguishing truth from falsehood.
Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it.
--Hannah Arendt
What is most difficult is to love the world as it is, with all the evil and suffering in it.
--Hannah Arendt
(HT to @Samantha RoseHill for sharing the above two quotes.)
Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
Thus the New York Times expends its editorial might promoting transgender rights, the concern of a tiny minority, while Fox News rants in opposition to them. So climate change and other vital concerns for the society as a whole get pushed to the media margins.
It comes back, then, to the question of the self-image. Miseries, humiliations, embarrassments, accidents, have the effect of creating partial self-images—self-images which, since they present themselves as complete, are bound to be false. Consciousness narrows, and my self-image becomes as false and distorted as if I was seeing myself in a trick mirror at a fairground. But a trick mirror at least shows you your whole self, from head to foot; the partial self-image is a pocket-size distorting mirror.
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