Books, like lives, are always unfinished even when they end, for to write is to struggle with contingency, to impose a certain false order upon the endless, and endlessly frustrating, nature of thought.
Mark KingwellAll social space is suffused with political meanings and agendas, the very stones and walls a kind of testament to the ongoing struggles for liberation and justices.
Mark KingwellI hold to the idea that civility, understood as the willingness to engage in public discourse, is the first virtue of citizens.
Mark KingwellNeiman's book is written with considerable flair, as many critics have already noted, but it possesses a far rarer and more valuable quality: moral seriousness. Her argument builds a powerful emotional force, a sense of deep inevitability. . . . It is not often that a work of such dark conclusions has felt so hopeful and brave.
Mark KingwellSocrates was likewise right that pissing people off is how we first, and maybe best, go about the business of provoking thought.
Mark KingwellWe tend to think of the problems of globalization and cultural identity as peculiar to our times. In fact they are rooted in ancient problems of civic belonging.
Mark KingwellDreams are evidence that we are creatures who produce more meaning than we can ourselves understand.
Mark KingwellParadoxically, the problems of politics often arise not in the form of a problem of scarcity, but as one of abundance.
Mark KingwellWe don't know what the future will bring, but that's because we are ever in the process of creating it, not because it is an alien force to which we have to submit.
Mark KingwellFor every apparent gain, in short, we now observe a balancing danger. This is the world we have created.
Mark KingwellTyranny is abhorrent, freedom benefits all, whereas violence benefits no one for long.
Mark KingwellPolitics is rather the creation of the best possible polity out of the deep inner needs of its citizenry - who are only some of its members.
Mark Kingwell