
“To make things 'perfectly clear' is reactionary and stupefying. The real is not perfectly clear.”
Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 7
“To make things 'perfectly clear' is reactionary and stupefying. The real is not perfectly clear.”
Free Culture (2004)
Context: It is valuable copyrights that are responsible for terms being extended. Mickey Mouse and "Rhapsody in Blue." These works are too valuable for copyright owners to ignore. But the real harm to our society from copyright extensions is not that Mickey Mouse remains Disney's. Forget Mickey Mouse. Forget Robert Frost. Forget all the works from the 1920s and 1930s that have continuing commercial value. The real harm of term extension comes not from these famous works. The real harm is to the works that are not famous, not commercially exploited, and no longer available as a result.
“Lifelong learning is no longer a luxury but a necessity for employment.”
Source: Disrupt You! (2015), p.64
1980s–1990s, Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)
“Even if work were not an economic necessity, it is a spiritual necessity.”
2022, May 2022, Remarks By President Biden on the Affordable Connectivity Program
Standing by Words: Essays (2011), Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms (1982)
Context: It may be, then, that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.
"MEME 2.04", an interview with David S. Bennahum (1996)
1990s
Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), p. 154.