The faithful witness, like...Socrates, Voltaire, and Swift and Christ himself, is at his best when he is questioning and clarifying and avoiding the specialists obsession with solution. He betrays society when he is silent...He is true to himself and to people when his clarity causes disquiet.
John Ralston SaulWordsmiths who serve established power...castrate the public imagination by subjecting language to a complexity which renders it private. Elitism is always their aim.
John Ralston SaulOur civilization is locked in the grip of an ideology - corporatism. An ideology that denies and undermines the legitimacy of individuals as the citizen in a democracy. The particular imbalance of this ideology leads to a worship of self-interest and a denial of the public good. The practical effects on the individual are passivity and conformism in the areas that matter, and non-conformism in the areas that don't
John Ralston SaulMarx was fortunate to have been born eighty years before Walt Disney. Disney also promised a child's paradise and unlike Marx, delivered on his promise.
John Ralston SaulElites quite naturally define as the most important and admired qualities for a citizen those on which they themselves have concentrated.
John Ralston Saul