
“Back from the brink of elimination to the brink of the NBA Finals!”
Moments after the Kobe–Shaq alley-oop, which capped off a 15-point comeback.
Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, The Threat of Nuclear War
Context: A complete destruction of cities, industry, transport, and systems of education, a poisoning of fields, water, and air by radioactivity, a physical destruction of the larger part of mankind, poverty, barbarism, a return to savagery, and a genetic degeneracy of the survivors under the impact of radiation, a destruction of the material and information basis of civilization — this is a measure of the peril that threatens the world as a result of the estrangement of the world's two super-powers.
Every rational creature, finding itself on the brink of a disaster, first tries to get away from the brink and only then does it think about the satisfaction of its other needs. If mankind is to get away from the brink, it must overcome its divisions.
“Back from the brink of elimination to the brink of the NBA Finals!”
Moments after the Kobe–Shaq alley-oop, which capped off a 15-point comeback.
“The division of mankind threatens it with destruction.”
Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968)
Context: The division of mankind threatens it with destruction. Civilization is imperiled by: a universal thermonuclear war, catastrophic hunger for most of mankind, stupefaction from the narcotic of "mass culture," and bureaucratized dogmatism, a spreading of mass myths that put entire peoples and continents under the power of cruel and treacherous demagogues, and destruction or degeneration from the unforeseeable consequences of swift changes in the conditions of life on our planet.
In the face of these perils, any action increasing the division of mankind, any preaching of the incompatibility of world ideologies and nations is madness and a crime. Only universal cooperation under conditions of intellectual freedom and the lofty moral ideals of socialism and labor, accompanied by the elimination of dogmatism and pressures of the concealed interests of ruling classes, will preserve civilization.
The reader will understand that ideological collaboration cannot apply to those fanatical, sectarian, and extremist ideologies that reject all possibility of rapprochement, discussion, and compromise, for example, the ideologies of fascist, racist, militaristic, and Maoist demagogy.
1960s, Civil Rights Bill signing speech (1964)
Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, Pollution of Environment
Context: The problem of geohygiene (earth hygiene) is highly complex and closely tied to economic and social problems. This problem can therefore not be solved on a national and especially not on a local basis. The salvation of our environment requires that we overcome our divisions and the pressure of temporary, local interests. Otherwise, the Soviet Union will poison the United States with its wastes and vice versa.
“It is time to step back from the apartheid brink…”
2010s, Diversity: History's Pathway to Chaos (2016)
Interview http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/cc835_44.htm with H. G. Wells (September 1937)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Variant: Which means Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division; and from the antagonism between poor and rich means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts.
“And we danced, on the brink of an unknown future, to an echo from a vanished past.”
Source: The Day of the Triffids
1960s, Civil Rights Bill signing speech (1964)
"Nihilism On A Religious Soil" (6 May 1907) http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd_lib/1907_135_4.html
Context: The uniting of Orthodoxy with state absolutism came about on the soil of a non-belief in the Divineness of the earth, in the earthly future of mankind; Orthodoxy gave away the earth into the hands of the state because of its own non-belief in man and mankind, because of its nihilistic attitude towards the world. Orthodoxy does not believe in the religious ordering of human life upon the earth, and it compensates for its own hopeless pessimism by a call for the forceful ordering of it by state authority.