Sublime

“You were not made to live like animals/But to pursue virtue and know the world,”

Stories move in from the shadows to the limelight. And though the stage presents the drama of our powerlessness, the shadows offer the secret of our power.

This book was written for something—for the encouragement of activists who share some of my dreams and values. We are all activists in some way or another, because our actions (and inactions) have impact. And it was written against something—a defeatist, dismissive frame of mind that is far too widespread.

Violence is the power of the state; imagination and nonviolence the power of civil society.

Both versions are defeatist because they are static. What’s missing from these two ways of telling is an ability to recognize a situation in which you are traveling and have not arrived, in which you have cause both to celebrate and fight, in which the world is always being made

Imposition is about consolidation of power; the local I’m interested in is about dispersing it.

This is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative movements that could not be foreseen. It’s also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both.

Individual hearts and minds change; those who have been changed become aware of one another; still others are emboldened, in a contagion of boldness; the “impossible” becomes possible; immediately it is done, surprising the actors almost as much as their opponents; and suddenly, almost with the swiftness of thought—whose transformation has in fact