The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Groups that organize society tend to take too much privilege for themselves regardless of their stated goals.
- In plain terms
- Organizations often give themselves too much power no matter what they say.
- What can you take from it?
- Organizations naturally accumulate excess privilege.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Who holds the power?
- How do you share privilege?
Another view
Some organizations do strive for fairness.
More from Reinhold Niebuhr
The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power.
Permalink to quote #8 The society in which each man lives is at once the basis for, and the nemesis of, that fulness of life which each man seeks.
Permalink to quote #10 Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.
Permalink to quote #7
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