The question of identity has separated from the issue of 'assimilation', having lost much of its drama and become, so to speak, a secular problem.

I suspect that the peer-review system carries a good part of blame for the fact that something like sixty percent or more of journal articles are never quoted (which means leaving no trace on our joint scholarly pursuits), and (in my reception at any rate) the "learned journals" (with a few miraculous exceptions that entail, prominently, TCS) ooze monumental boredom.

You judge a society by the decency of living of the weakest

We live in a world of communication, everyone gets information about everyone else. There is universal comparison and you don't just compare yourself with the people next door, you compare yourself to people all over the world and with what is being presented as the decent, proper and dignified life. It's the crime of humiliation.

You cannot have a cake and eat it too. Either you eat it, or you have it.

This awful concept of underclass is really horrifying. You're not lower class, you are excluded - outside.

We live in a globalising world. That means that all of us, consciously or not, depend on each other. Whatever we do or refrain from doing affects the lives of people who live in places we'll never visit.