Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -) The pandemic is a spotlight that illuminates underlying problems – economic inequality, racism, patriarchy. Taking care of each other begins with understanding the differences. And when the virus has slowed or stopped, all these problems will still need to be addressed. They are the chronic illnesses that weaken us …
Rebecca Solnit On Democracy And Authoritarianism
Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -) Democracy is a set of agreements to make decisions together and respect the outcome whether you like them or not. The kind of violence we saw on Capitol Hill (Jan 06, 2021) is authoritarian, a way to try to force other people to submit to the will of the …
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Rebecca Solnit On Loss
Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 - ) Lost really has two disparate meanings. Losing things is about the familiar falling away, getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing. There are objects and people that disappear from your sight or knowledge or possession; you lose a bracelet, a friend, the key. You still know where you …
Rebecca Solnit On Hope
Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -) Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away. And though hope can be an act of defiance, defiance isn’t enough reason to hope. But there are good reasons.
Rebecca Solnit On Protests
Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -) What we call protest identifies one aspect of popular power and resistance, a force so woven into history and everyday life that you miss a lot of its impact if you focus only on groups of people taking stands in public places. But people taking such stands have changed …
Rebecca Solnit On The Man In The White House
Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -) The man in the white house sits, naked and obscene, a pustule of ego, in the harsh light, a man whose grasp exceeded his understanding, because his understanding was dulled by indulgence. He must know somewhere below the surface he skates on that he has destroyed his image, and …
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Rebecca Solnit On Consumerism
Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -) There are times when it's clear to me that by getting and spending, we lay waste our powers, and times when, say, the apricot velvet headboard against the lavender wall of a room in an old hotel fills me with a mysterious satisfied pleasure in harmonies of color, texture, …
Rebecca Solnit On Representation
Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -) What is onstage is a tragedy, the tragedy of the inequitable distribution of power and of the too-common silence of those who settle for being audience while paying the price of the drama. Traditionally, the audience is supposed to choose the actors, and the actors are quite literally supposed …
Rebecca Solnit On The Media
Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -) I think of the mainstream media as having not so much a rightwing or leftwing bias but a status quo bias, a tendency to believe people in authority, to trust institutions and corporations and the rich and powerful and pretty much any self-satisfied white man in a suit; to …
Rebecca Solnit On Lies And Language
Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -) There are so many ways to tell a lie. You can lie by ignoring whole regions of impact, omitting crucial information, or unhitching cause and effect; by falsifying information by distortion and disproportion, or by using names that are euphemisms for violence or slander for legitimate activities, so that …
Rebecca Solnit On Rape
Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -) We have been here before. We have been here over and over in an endless, Groundhog Day loop about how rape and sexual abuse happen: offering the same explanations, hearing the same kind of stories from wave after wave of survivors, hearing the same excuses and refusals to comprehend from …
Rebecca Solnit On Transformation
Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -) There are times when it seems as though not only the future but the present is dark: few recognize what a radically transformed world we live in, one that has been transformed not only by such nightmares as global warming and global capital, but by dreams of freedom and …
Rebecca Solnit On Hope
Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -) Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away, and though hope can be an act of defiance, defiance isn’t enough reason to hope. 🎂Happy Birthday Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 -)🎂
