I think that what's actually happening is the collapse of the Center - the centrist semi-coalitions, mildly social-democrat, mildly conservative, that have been running the countries for years. They are severely declining. You can see it in voting; you can see it also in popular attitudes: contempt for what are called "the élites," the experts, the people in charge.

It's a mistake to suppose that capacities must evolve gradually. There are many known examples of sharp changes - slight genetic modification that yields substantial phenotypic effects, and much else.

There are enormous opportunities to work for a world that is more free, peaceful and just.

We recriminalized black life. Incarceration rates since the 1908s have gone through the roof, overwhelmingly black males, women and Hispanics to some extent. Essentially re-doing what happened under Reconstruction. That's the history of African Americans - so how can any one say there's no problem. Sure, racism is serious, but it's worse than that.

The U.S. is, to a very unusual extent, a business-run society.

In the case of [Antonio] Gramsci, the Fascist government agreed that he was a "model intellectual" in [Edward] Said's sense, and for that reason determined, in their words, that "we must stop this brain from functioning for twenty years."

Another problem is the confrontation with India. Pakistan just cannot survive if it continues to do so (continue this confrontation).