“Indifference and ignorance are clearly a form of egoism that is only self-oriented. In some cases, it has the potential to deny conscience and even go against human dignity.”

Last update Nov. 30, 2023. History

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“Disclosure and realization of potential are not only the basis of human happiness but also a duty to conscience and society.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“A society that has no ideals, that discards the principles of humanitarianism, that abandons the fundamental rights and dignity of humanity, can only survive by denying truth, fairness and justice.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Our Duty Is to Remember Sichuan, 2009

“Indifference of every kind is reprehensible, even indifference towards one’s self.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 82.

“Self-realization – is an individual's full implementation of potential realization: spiritual-moral, intellectual, creative, and emotional, during the process of which it reveals and realizes its human dignity and professional abilities.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Letter to three students (October 1967) as translated in Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record (1970) edited by Leopold Labedz (1970) “The Struggle Intensifies".

“The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others.”

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) Swedish diplomat, economist, and author

Markings (1964)

“This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it's nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

RTNDA Convention Speech (1958)
Context: This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it's nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.
Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.

“"Freedom" awakens your rage against everything that is not you; "egoism" calls you to joy over yourselves, to self-enjoyment.”

Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own

Dover 2005, p. 163
The Ego and Its Own (1845)

“If we humans are good at anything, it’s thinking we’ve got a terrific idea and going for it without acknowledging the potential consequences or our own ignorance.”

David Suzuki (1936) Canadian popular scientist and environmental activist

“Humans in modern societies are driven by a perhaps desperate hope that they might find some way of mobilizing their theoretical and empirical knowledge and their evaluative systems so as both to locate themselves and their projects in some larger imaginative structure that makes sense to them. … Furthermore, many modern agents would like it to be the case that the form of orientation which their life has is, if not true, at least compatible with the best available knowledge.”

Raymond Geuss book Philosophy and Real Politics

Philosophy and Real Politics (2008).
Philosophy and Real Politics (2008)

“Indifference and ignorance are clearly a form of egoism that is only self-oriented. In some cases, it has the potential to deny conscience and even go against human dignity.”

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