I hold to the idea that civility, understood as the willingness to engage in public discourse, is the first virtue of citizens.

Politics 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.

How doe we create the world we want, rather than a world that just happens to us?

All 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.

Socrates was likewise right that pissing people off is how we first, and maybe best, go about the business of provoking thought.

Dreams are evidence that we are creatures who produce more meaning than we can ourselves understand.

Neiman'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.