There was an assumption that aerial bombing of civilians in World War II would cause fragile, working-class people to basically have nervous breakdowns and it would paralyze the state. That was the logic of aerial bombing. In fact, it doesn't happen at all, but the logic behind aerial bombing has never stopped, even though it never demoralizes, terrorizes, or paralyzes a population.
Rebecca SolnitA lone walker is both present and detached, more than an audience but less than a participant. Walking assuages or legitimizes this alienation.
Rebecca SolnitSense of place is the sixth sense, an internal compass and map made by memory and spatial perception together.
Rebecca SolnitIt's all about a war of social impulses and beliefs that is as powerful in its way as a big hurricane.
Rebecca SolnitIt's hardly surprising that the corporate aliens lie when it comes to the relationship between doing something about climate change and the economy.
Rebecca SolnitAt a certain fork in the road of automatization, Europeans chose to have more time, and they work far less than we do and get much longer vacations. We chose to have more stuff, the stuff sold to us through those beckoning adjectives-bigger, better, faster: Jet Skis, extra cars, second homes, motor homes, towering slab TVs, if not the time to enjoy them or to enjoy less commodified pleasures.
Rebecca SolnitMusing takes place in a kind of meadowlands of the imagination, a part of the imagination that has not yet been plowed, developed, or put to any immediately practical useโฆtime spent there is not work time, yet without that time the mind becomes sterile, dull, domesticated. The fight for free space โ for wilderness and public space โ must be accompanied by a fight for free time to spend wandering in that space.
Rebecca Solnit