delete

[kpete]

Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are.

http://www.opednews.com/Quotations/Every-valuable-human-being-mus-by-Niels-Bohr-100903-845.html

kpete: i just wanted to PUSH...
i did not think of this as gospel,
just a good goal towards evolution
- if only we each did our best each & every day.
i was moved by the quote.

forget it.
disappointingly - deleted

one more thing-i will try to be valuable, radical and rebellious and aim to make things better than they are.
i will fail more than i will succeed...
that is NOT my point,
Sometimes, DU exasperates me!
I write this (although I am usually very quiet with my own opinion)
because, few - will read this P.S. or care...

[xchrom]

1. simple and concise -- nt

[MineralMan]

2. Patently untrue. Many valuable human beings hold no radical

beliefs and are not rebels. Some are simply valuable for what they do. Bohr was brilliant in some respects, but as a philosopher, he was a good physicist. Unrecced for oversimplification.

[hfojvt]

4. Is that quote from Neils Bohr?

I think you meant "NOT as a philosopher".

Obviosuly his philosophy is no better than his model for the atom.

You know what you do when your Bohr model of the atom breaks down?


A: you call a quantum mechanic.

[MineralMan]

7. The very same Bohr.

Talking about something not in his area of expertise.

[el_bryanto]

5. Agreed! There are important and essential people in every community

Who just go to work everyday, do a job quietly but competently, and then go home. To say those people are valueless is just silly.

Bryant

[hfojvt]

3. disagree

first, I do not like the characterization "valuable human being". That seems to imply that there are human beings of no value. Since, therefore, the human beings who do not join the rebellion are of no value, it must be okay, or even a good thing, to kill them.

Second, "making things better" does not necessarily imply either radicalism nor rebellion. "Radical" implies major changes. The radical seems to want to scrap everything and start over. Not only that, but there are many radical ideas. For example, the Bush tax cuts, privatizing social security, and invading Iraq. Those are all radical ideas, and the people promoting them and falling for the propaganda would claim that they will "make things better".

Third, putting radical and rebel together sound like a recipe for violence. The rebel is "fighting against established authority". Whoop de do. Every criminal fights against established authority. After all the established authority says that you are not supposed to steal, rape or murder. It would be pretty radical to support theft, rape and murder wouldn't it?

Fourth, but really "radical and rebel" implies a more intense definition of "fight". A radical would be fighting not just with passion, but with intense passion, or zeal. A zealot is often willing to kill or dehumanize those he/she is fighting against. After all, violence as a tactic, is another radical idea isn't it? And so it hatred? It is often those lilly-livered moderates who keep advocating against violence and hatred. The kinds of fools who always want to compromise, and sacrifice principles.

"We’ll only offer one more thought about the career of Dr. King, going all the way back to the Montgomery bus boycott:

If you read Stride Toward Freedom, you will see that Dr. King endlessly deferred, on points which weren’t essential, to people who were massively wrong on the larger questions. He repeatedly deferred to leaders of Montgomery’s white community—to the mayor; to the police commissioner; to the bus company; to white business leaders. He deferred on non-essential points, even as he kept pursuing the larger goal of defeating legal segregation and “social oppression.” He didn’t choose to stand and fight every time the other tribe annoyed, offended or opposed him. He didn’t do that because he was a deeply serious person. He wasn’t a hack like Josh.

Dr. King knew that, if you fight every non-essential fight, you will likely lose out in the end, especially if you’re opposing entrenched power. And Dr. King wanted to win. He wasn’t trying to please the rubes by accepting every possible fight."

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh091310.shtml

"repeatedly deferred"?? What a coward and a sell out, eh? Give him an hour on the DU pillory.

[baldguy]

6. Even if you agree with that statement, the reverse is certainly not true.

Every radical or rebel is not a valuable human being. Some of them are dangerous.

[TheKentuckian]

8. Not really an honest statement from my perspective. Radical can be in any direction

and it depends why one is compelled to rebel and against who.

That said, I'm happy to rec because we. are quite short of either. More fervent radicals are needed on the side of the people against the radical theocratic, corporate, and imperial fiends running amok in our times and since they, their toadies, and allies control virtually all flow of information, resources, wealth, terrifying weapons, and the strings, a free people require a a strong rebellious streak to have the slightest hope of remaining that way.

[el_bryanto]

9. There's nothing wrong with being a rebel or a radical

And there's nothing wrong in thinking we need rebels and radicals.

I would agree with both those statements

But your quote implies that if one is not a rebel and a radical one has no value - and that is a statement I do disagree with.

Bryant

[MineralMan]

10. Well, I read your deletion message and your P.S.

Why not stick to your guns? The quote was simply not wrong, but to go off in a huff like that is sort of silly. Instead of simply explaining what it was that you meant by posting that quote, you attempt to delete your OP. Then you return to add to your supposedly deleted OP.

Why not leave it and join the discussion? Why run off and pretend you didn't post it?

Niels Bohr was never a philosopher. His random statements with no context don't make very good quotations to post. He's wrong with this one, since he doesn't define what makes a human being "valuable." Therefore, his argument fails, since any reasonable person can find examples of people who do valuable things, but are not rebels or radicals. It's so easy a thing to refute that the statement is patently false.

You really had no comment to add to your quote, so we all assumed that you thought it was true. It's not. So, confronted with that, you try to retreat somehow, but then come back and complain because nobody understood what you didn't say in the first place. Weak soup, that.

[kpete]

11. MineralMan

I agree that i am sometimes silly
I did go off in a huff.
You are right.
But not because I disagree with the quote.

I am a visual artist - words are NOT my cup of tea.
Trying to explain the quote as I read it is a VERY difficult thing for me.
I am not a verbal person.
I cut and paste.


BUT, I truly believe that unless the GOOD people of the world do NOT Rebel, we are lost.
I also admit (and my husband points out) that I am an over-emotional human being with little patience for the slow pace of evolution.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
We are the change that we seek. (Barack Obama)

and now I retreat to my cut and paste without commentary...kp
but if you want to know how I REALLY feel: http://www.kpetestudio.com/

[MineralMan]

12. Interesting art. But don't discount your ability with words.

You write quite clearly. I encourage you to speak with your own voice here, rather than using other people's voices. Nobody else can say what you mean. Speak for yourself in this language-oriented place. That may even help inform your art. The two things are not exclusive.

[kpete]

13. thanks

for checking it out
peace, kp

[hfojvt]

14. failing more than you succeed

was not my point either. The questions are 1. What defines 'better'? and 2. Are we gonna be so radical and rebellious that we use, or advocate, hatred or violence? (It seems to me that for the first part DU is already there and has been for a looong time). and 3. Aren't moderates valuable when they can be persuaded to help the causes?