Masha Gessen Being Awesome
We are not any smarter, kinder, wiser, or more moral than people who lived ninety years ago. We are just as likely to needlessly give up our political power and to remain willfully ignorant of darkness as it’s dawning. But we know something they didn’t know: we know that the Holocaust is possible.
Trying to avoid Holocaust:
“Mere opposition finally blinds us hopelessly from our opponents, who no doubt are caricaturing us while we are demonizing them. We lose, in short, the sense of shared humanity that would permit us to say even to our enemies, “We are working, after all, in your interest and your children’s. Ours is a common effort for the common good. Come and join us.” - Wendell Berry