“The roles that we construct are constructed because we feel that they will help us to survive and also, of course, because they fulfill something in our personalities; and one does not, therefore, cease playing a role simply because one has begun to understand it.”
"The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy" in Esquire (May 1961)
Context: The roles that we construct are constructed because we feel that they will help us to survive and also, of course, because they fulfill something in our personalities; and one does not, therefore, cease playing a role simply because one has begun to understand it. All roles are dangerous. The world tends to trap you in the role you play and it is always extremely hard to maintain a watchful, mocking distance between oneself as one appears to be and oneself as one actually is.
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James Baldwin 163
(1924-1987) writer from the United States 1924–1987Related quotes
Luhmann (1991) “Wie lassen sich latente Strukturen beobachten?,” in Paul Watzlawick, Peter Krieg (eds.), Das Auge des Betrachters: Beiträge zum Konstruktivismus. Festschrift für Heinz von Foerster, Piper, München-Zürich, p. 71; cited in: Heinz von Foerster (1993) " For Niklas Luhmann: “How Recursive is Communication?” http://e1020.pbworks.com/f/fulltext-2.pdf". Translated by Richard Howe.
Speech at the National Press Club (2004)
Session 826, Page 126
The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, (1981)
Source: The Life of Poetry (1949), Chapter One : The Fear of Poetry
Context: In this moment when we face horizons and conflicts wider than ever before, we want our resources, the ways of strength. We look again to the human wish, its faiths, the means by which the imagination leads us to surpass ourselves.
If there is a feeling that something has been lost, it may be because much has not yet been used, much is still to be found and begun.
Everywhere we are told that our human resources are all to be used, that our civilization itself means the uses of everything it has — the inventions, the histories, every scrap of fact. But there is one kind of knowledge — infinitely precious, time-resistant more than monuments, here to be passed between the generations in any way it may be: never to be used. And that is poetry.
From his 1971 World Series MVP acceptance speech, discussing his sometimes strained relationship with manager Danny Murtaugh, as quoted in "Pittsburgh's Clemente Honored"
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>
“Masculine and feminine roles are not biologically fixed but socially constructed.”
Source: 'Gender is een performance', Gender is a performance, Anouta de Groot, 2017-09-04, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, nl, In 1999 schreef de Amerikaanse filosoof Judith Butler haar bekende werk Gender Trouble. Met dit boek zette zei het begrip gender op de kaart. Butler stelt hierin dat gender niet biologisch vastgelegd is, maar door de maatschappij wordt bepaald en steeds kan veranderen. "Masculine and feminine roles are not biologically fixed but socially constructed.", 2022-06-12 https://www.ru.nl/radboudreflects/terugblik/terugblik-2017-0/terugblik-2017/17-09-04-man-vrouw-doe-filosofieworkshop-anya/,
1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)