“We must at least allow the pain inflicted upon us by our enemies to be a megaphone to our own deafness to the world, waking us up to the needs of others, to the violence inflicted upon them.”
Source: Letters from Abu Ghraib (2008), p. 92.
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Joshua Casteel 6
US Army soldier, lecturer, and writer 1979–2012Related quotes
“Societies which inflict pain and discomfort upon their infants tend to neglect them as well.”
"Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" (1975)
"Preface", in The Extended Circle: A Commonplace Book of Animal Rights (1989)
Source: 2000s, Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World (2002), p. 218
“For too long, we’ve been blind to the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts upon this nation.”
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: For too long, we’ve been blind to the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts upon this nation. Sporadically, our eyes are open: When eight of our brothers and sisters are cut down in a church basement, 12 in a movie theater, 26 in an elementary school. But I hope we also see the 30 precious lives cut short by gun violence in this country every single day; the countless more whose lives are forever changed -- the survivors crippled, the children traumatized and fearful every day as they walk to school, the husband who will never feel his wife’s warm touch, the entire communities whose grief overflows every time they have to watch what happened to them happen to some other place. The vast majority of Americans -- the majority of gun owners -- want to do something about this. We see that now. And I'm convinced that by acknowledging the pain and loss of others, even as we respect the traditions and ways of life that make up this beloved country -- by making the moral choice to change, we express God’s grace.