Quotations

_ – About “the poor rich”
_ – About children and consumerism
_ – About disinterested knowledge
About “the poor rich”

In the course of the last three centuries, an unprecedented economic growth has made us richer, massively richer, but barely happier. On the contrary: the feeling of inequality and the loss of the joy for life are pathologies that reach even the richest. We are lacking in nothing except for living life to the full. Might it be that, despite us, our accumulated wealth reveals itself as our poverty? Have we become, in our successful West, “poor rich”?

Christian Arnsperger

About children and consumerism

Today, children end up taking superficial desires for basic needs. Advertising targets them since they are two years old. If unfortunately they have that kind of parents who are susceptible of being cheated by that type of advertising that assures them that if they do not buy their children a given toy that means they do not love them, the situation can become calamitous. I have to teach children fundamental needs; how to structure their minds, how to read and count. The students’ desires go against that will: children today want to consume “a la carte” education, as if they were buying electronic appliances.

Daniel Pennac

About disinterested knowledge

Disinterested knowledge is a quixotic venture: the attack, pen-poised, against the windmills of an alleged truth protected by the law of silence scourges the intrepid researcher. Those who do not bow down in acquiescence, climb the ranks with great difficulty. Knowledge and academic promotion are very different, and often incompatible, things.

Juan Goytisolo