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About this quote

What does it mean?
Environmental decay should inspire kindness but instead humans respond with aggression and manipulation.
In plain terms
Instead of being kind to nature and each other we fight when we should.
What can you take from it?
Crisis often triggers conflict rather than cooperation.

Where it applies

  • climate crisis
  • community stress
  • ethical decision

Putting it to work

  • practice kindness
  • cooperate
  • forgive

Questions to consider

  • How do you react to crisis?
  • When did you choose kindness?

Another view

Conflict may be necessary to secure resources in scarcity.

More from Margaret Atwood

  1. I am yours. If you feed me garbage, I will sing a song of garbage. This is a hymn.

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  2. In restaurants we argue over which of us will pay for your funeral though the real question is whether or not I will make you immortal.

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  3. When you hear me singing you get the rifle down and the flashlight, aiming for my brain, but you always miss and when you set out the poison I piss on it to wa…

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