George Eliot, Middlemarch (Penguin Classics, 1994) p. 809
26 Sept 2012
'That was a wrong thing for you to say, that you would have had nothing to try for. If we had lost our own chief good, other people's good would remain, and that is worth trying for. Some can be happy. I seemed to see that more clearly than ever, when I was the most wretched. I can hardly think how I could have borne the trouble, if that feeling had not come to me to make strength.'
'I call that the fanaticism of sympathy,' said Will, impetuously. 'You might say the same of landscape, of poetry, of all refinement. If you carried it out you ought to be miserable in your own goodness, and turn evil that you might have no advantage over others. The best piety is to enjoy – when you can. You are doing the most then to save the earth's character as an agreeable planet. And enjoyment radiates. It is of no use to try and take care of all the world; that is being taken care of when you feel delight – in art or in anything else. Would you turn all the youth of the world into a tragic chorus, wailing and moralizing over misery? I suspect that you have some false belief in the virtues of misery, and want to make your life a martyrdom.'
George Eliot, Middlemarch (Penguin Classics, 1994) pp. 219-220
20 Sept 2012
[Today] it's almost inconceivable that we're going to be able to shake this shitty system off its foundations, to create a new trajectory for ourselves as a species, in relation to nature. But that's the idea of "Cut the World"-- why not try? All we've got is legend to make of ourselves. The legends are being written, whether we try or not. We're either a bunch of assholes who lay around, waiting for the inevitable to happen, while we indulge our every last tidbit of consumerism. Or we try to use the platforms available to us to at least shake things.
Antony Hegarty, 'Director's Cut interview' at Pitchfork.com (2012-09-18)
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