Dr. King’s policy was, if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That’s very good. He only made one fallacious assumption. In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.
Stokely Carmichael, one of SNCC’s first freedom riders
It reminds me of the prevalence of left-handedness in the US. If you look at a chart, left-handedness absolutely exploded in the early 20th century, going from 3% of the population up to 10%. But it’s stayed at 10% for about 8 decades now.
No one actually thinks more of the population suddenly became left-handed and then stabilized. It was a combination of underreporting and forcing left-handed children to write right-handed.
Same as with any difference that can be hidden. We don’t have more autistic people now; we’re just better at recognizing that the guy that spent his entire life photographing snowflakes might’ve just lived before we had diagnostic tools or a cultural understanding of special interests and the autism spectrum.
We read very different books. I thought the first half was hilarious, but it lulled me into a comfort of the absurdity and the banality that set up an absolutely devastating second half.
I think it’s one of the greatest books I’ve ever read, but I don’t think it was a comedy.