Alternate email signature quote June 17, 2008
Posted by Zack in Uncategorized , trackbackYou know this Margaret Mead quote? “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” That quote seems to have been adopted as the standard email signature for a certain element of the progressive left.
Meanwhile, Christian email is fast adopting Mother Teresa’s quote, “There are no great things, only small things with great love.”
I like both of those quotes. But I always have the feeling that both are being used as bludgeons against out-of-fashion ideas like long-term planning, goal setting, big-picture thinking and even just plain organizing.
So, at the bottom of someone’s email today I saw a great quote that I somehow have not come across before. Maybe I will add it to my own email settings:
“Small acts of humanity amid the chaos of inhumanity provide hope. But small acts are insufficient.”
- Paul Rusesabagina
Rusesabagina is the Rwandan hotel manager who saved a whole bunch of people in the genocide and inspired the movie Hotel Rwanda.
Comments»
Thanks for this. I’ve updated my mail client to use this quote.
This is a very painful and awkward quote when paired with the lie that Hotel Rwanda is. Talk to anybody from Rwanda and they’ll tell you what Paul Rusesabagina is really like: an extortionist that took advantage of people’s extreme situations in order to turn a profit. Rwandans don’t like Hotel Rwanda. They like Sometimes in April. Its a more honest look at the situation that doesn’t try to manufacture a hero.
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B”H
Hi Zack,
I missed seeing you this past weekend at the PAPA Fest. I pray that all is well with you and Elizabeth.
Blessings,
Shlomo
Glad to find someone else who isn’t crazy about Mead’s quote. I dislike it because it’s not true. Even if we refigure her words to include “small committed groups” of, say, Fascists, who have certainly changed the world, if not for the better, it excludes all the many other things that have caused great alterations in our life, such as natural disasters. And then there are the changes that have been caused by economic or technological factors, such as the sprawl resulting from the sudden popularity of the automobile.
And Mother Theresa, who fit comfortably into a niche that did little to challenge the status quo, is hardly someone I want to rely on for strategy tips.
I agree that there’s a great temptation for people to console themselves with the satisfaction they get from scattered individual actions. Coordinated, large-scale action results in much disappointment, wasted time, and compromise. But of course we can’t do without it.
Hi Zack:
I thought about your overarching point while reading N.T. Wright’s “Jesus and the Victory of God” this past week. Wright was using some of the other first century messianic movements to bring out some of the finer points of Jesus’ movement that get lost w/o the historical context. The line that made me think of your running argument the one in which he points out that Bar Kochba went so far as to start minting coins for the new kingdom even while the Romans were still ruling the territory. Wright uses it as an example of the “here, but still coming in the future” nature of the Kingdom of God, but for some reason it seemed to resonate with what you’ve been saying here. Maybe you can do something with it, I don’t know.
Here’s another alternative quote for you:
“The immediacy and simplicity of this new commandment liberate us from fears, from plans, from complicated orders issued by the state, whether in peacetime or in wartime, and from all that divides people from one another. Freed from all casuistry, one can joyfully serve others as well as refuse with the same joy any attempt on humanity’s existence. We no longer need to be impressed by great principles quoted to us, or with great historical moments that call for bloodshed. It is so simple. Any endeavor to serve the needs of others, especially those that benefit children, the persecuted, prisoners, the exploited, the aged, the infirm, will advance God’s kingdom, even if only minutely.”
This quote is from Andre Trocme, pastor at Le Chambon sur Lignon in occupied France during WWII. Under Trocme’s leadership Le Chambon openly and nonviolently resisted Vichy and the Nazis, and they rescued around 5,000 Jews in full view of the Tartar Legion.