We really have to think about aging because women are living longer than men. More of the people who need care are women. A lot of them are living alone, with no one to care for them, or they're shunted into institutions. I would like to see a sensible aging policy more like what the Nordic countries have. They're cutting back those programs, but there you can still have in-home nursing care. You don't have to rely on your children. I personally don't want to be a burden on my daughter.
Martha C. NussbaumTo be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances for which you were not to blame. That says something very important about the condition of the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertain and on a willingness to be exposed; itโs based on being more like a plant than like a jewel, something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility.
Martha C. NussbaumIt's not as though there aren't many, many art works and many other cultures, but there was something special about the civic nature of the Greek theater. All the citizens stopped working. They came into these theaters. It wasn't like a Broadway theater where you sit in the dark and you expect to be passively entertained. You're in this theater, amphitheater, in bright sunlight looking at your fellow citizens, recognizing their faces, and thinking with them about the future of your city. I think very few cultures have had a theatrical tradition that is quite so civic.
Martha C. NussbaumThe Greek tragedies and comedies are like a roadmap to all the ways in which trying to live this rich, full life can go wrong. You could get into a war. You could find that you have members of your family on the wrong side of a political crisis. You could be raped. You could find that your child has gone crazy because of some horrible experience she's had.
Martha C. Nussbaum