Aristotle And Dante Dive Into The Waters Of The World
Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World
This book has so many great quotes that made me think, reflect, scream and cry. Here are some of them in the order I read them, rather than in an organised way alongside my thoughts.
Sáenz, B. A. (2021). Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World. Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers.
They want us to read, but they do not want us to write.
This applies to so many different areas and aspects that it is almost universal. It is even more relevant in the current political climate in far too many countries. It's frightening and it all starts with banning books, restricting access to information and preventing people from gaining knowledge.
I don’t want you to live in the prison of my thoughts. I’m the only one who should be living there.
Ouch. That one hurt.
Happiness. What the hell did that mean? It had to be more than the absence of sadness.
I'd argue that happiness can't exist without sadness being around as well.
A lot of things happened outside the world of words.
Communicating without words is as much an art as communicating with words.
But here we are, we’re in it, this world that does not want us, a world that will never love us, a world that would choose to destroy us rather than make a space for us even though there is more than enough room.
Some people want queer people to disappear, but we're born this way, so there will always be queer people because people are born every day. You cannot make us disappear.
I wonder if people like me ever get to know what peace is like.
Not long ago I was full of hope that we could. I'm not as hopeful anymore.
[...] we will always live between exile and belonging.
Rarely have I read a better depiction of the range of emotions described by many members of the LGBTQIA+ community. The sense of exclusion versus the sense of belonging to a community. And the state of floating between the two.
Sometimes we have to be able to speak for those who can’t. That takes a lot of courage.
I always felt that it was much easier for me to stand up and speak for others than for myself. But it takes courage to do both.
We were both learning words and their meanings, and we were learning that the word 'friendship' wasn’t completely separate from the word 'love.'
Of course it isn't. Platonic love is just as strong and important and meaningful as romantic love.
It’s a beautiful thing to let the people you love see your pain.
It's just so damn hard.
How can we make them change if we’re not allowed to talk?
It's not just about banning books, restricting access to information and preventing people from gaining knowledge. It's also about banning people from expressing themselves, preventing them from telling their stories, and preventing people from passing on empathy and knowledge, because love and empathy are contageous.
Maybe we think that the value of our own freedom is worth less if everybody else has it. And we’re afraid. We’re afraid that, if someone wants what we have, they’re taking something away that belongs to us — and only to us.
Some people certainly think so.
But not everything we need to learn can be found in a book. Or rather, I’ve learned that people are books too.
Have you ever heard of living libraries? This is an amazing description of the idea behind them.
We were in this world, and we were going to fight to stay in it. Because it was ours. And one day the word “exile” would be no more.
Hope.
Hate is an emotional pandemic we have never found a cure for.
Hopelessness.
More Posts from Fuzzyleapfrog and Others
Klimaungerechtigkeit
[...] da wir gelernt haben, »unsicher« in der Wissenschaft mit »keine Ahnung« zu übersetzen. Das Gegenteil wäre korrekt.
Es gibt kein brisanteres Beispiel dafür, dass ein Wort in der Wissenschaft eine andere Bedeutung hat als in der Alltagssprache und welche weitreichenden Konsequenzen das nach sich ziehen kann.
Was es zu retten gilt, ist nicht das Klima oder die Menschheit. Es geht schlicht und einfach darum, die Würde und Rechte der Menschen – und zwar aller Menschen – zu retten.
Das wird gerade von jenen nicht verstanden, die argumentieren, das Klima sei auch früher schon mal so warm gewesen und wahlweise die menschengemachte Klimaerwärmung daher kein Problem sei oder die gegenwärtige Klimaerwärmung gar nicht menschengemacht wäre. Insbesondere letzteres, also die Frage nach den Verursachenden, verblasst im Kontext des Zitats zu einem irrelevanten Aspekt eines gesellschaftlich relevanten Problems, das es dringend zu lösen gilt. Die Frage nach den Verursachenden gewinnt jedoch enorm an Bedeutung, wenn es darum geht, eine verantwortliche Rolle bei der Lösung der Gerechtigkeitskrise zu übernehmen und den am stärksten Betroffenen zu helfen.
Der kolonialfossile Klimawandel ist daher im Wesentlichen weder Klimakrise noch Klimakatastrophe [...], sondern eine Gerechtigkeitskrise. Diese Gerechtigkeitskrise durchzieht die Geschichte der Menschheit und findet nicht erst statt, seit der Klimawandel ein Thema ist. In Kombination mit den Auswirkungen des Klimawandels hat diese Gerechtigkeitskrise jedoch eine neue Dringlichkeit und globale Dimension erreicht, die nur mittelbar mit Physik zu tun hat.
Die menschengemachte Klimaveränderung mag zwar ein naturwissenschaftliches Problem sein. Die Herausforderung und damit auch die Krise, die sich daraus ergibt, ist jedoch eine gesellschaftliche.
Dies ist zum einen dem Selbstverständnis der meisten Naturwissenschaftler*innen geschuldet, die sich als »neutral« und damit außerhalb politischer Zusammenhänge sehen – was in meinen Augen eine Illusion ist. Daher klammern viele Forscher*innen eher politisch konnotierte Inhalte wie Schäden und Verluste von vornherein aus ihrer Arbeit aus.
Dieses Zitat kann man direkt mit meinem Post What and how we research in Zusammenhang bringen.
Otto, F. (2023). Klimaungerechtigkeit: Was die Klimakatastrophe mit Kapitalismus, Rassismus und Sexismus zu tun hat. Ullstein.
So Harvard has decided not to give in without a fight
"No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue," said Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a statement to the university on Monday.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/us/harvard-trump-reject-demands.html
This is a powerful and much-needed statement. Academia feels a glimmer of hope that not every university and not everyone in academia will give in without a fight. At the same time, the reasons are more strategic than simply protecting science, students, faculty and academic freedom.
Why Harvard Decided to Fight Trump
[...] any path the university chose seemed just as likely to lead to ongoing turmoil, and [...] officials at Harvard, [...] feared the White House would renege on any agreement.
[...] a strategy of "negotiation and conciliation seems to have no acceptable ending point."
[...] Harvard might have tried to negotiate just as Columbia did, "if it had assurance that the administration was negotiating in good faith."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/us/why-harvard-resisted-trumps-demands.html
There is no faith, no trust in the permanence of anything at this point. No decision, no agreement, no law is immutable, even for the shortest time, if the administration decides to change its mind. The ultimate goal is to dismantle academia anyway. So why even try to negotiate.
Queer Narrative
Coming-out stories [...] generally assume a stable sexual identity [...].
The idea of a stable identity has always puzzled me. As a person, I tend to grow and change with every breath I take, every experience I make, every conversation I have, every piece I read. Life is change and identity can change along the way. Sexual identity is no different.
Mulhall, A. (2020). Queer Narrative. In S. B. Somerville (Hrsg.), The Cambridge Companion to Queer Studies (1. edition, p. 142–155). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108699396.011
Fascism thrives on ignorance and anti-intellectualism. Here are some ways you can combat it:
There is an ongoing literacy crisis. Teach kids how to read phonetically (other methods produce poor literacy) and introduce them to fun books, both fiction and educational non-fiction.
Teach kids about critical thinking and the scientific method.
You can also introduce kids to edutainment like Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, The Magic Schoolbus, Bill Nye The Science Guy, Beakman's World, etc.
Help kids develop media literacy skills by asking them literary analysis questions about the media they engage with. Even very young children can begin learning literary analysis if the questions are phrased in words they can understand.
Learn and help other people learn information literacy, ie, how to locate and evaluate information.
Learn the red flags of pseudoscience, and educate other people about them.
Educate people and share media on real science and real history, because fascist narratives are full of pseudoscience and pseudohistory. (Miniminuteman, Gutsick Gibbon and Bart D. Ehrman's YouTube channel are great, by the way!)
Make learning a joyful experience, and show people the beauty and wonder of what's real. Being a discouraging killjoy will spoil your efforts.
Grieving, grieving, constantly grieving. I mourn what could have been, what should have been, what will not be, what I cannot save.
Sources: Gut, My. Something is Terribly Wrong, vol 136, 2025.
Librarians
As a librarian working to preserve and disseminate knowledge and books, I hope that in the future people will enjoy finding everything we've saved and learning about all the people who didn't obey in advance and how.
Very grateful for the librarians.
Knowledge
intellectual work, such as research (the creation of new knowledge) and learning (the creation of new knowledge within oneself)
Jonsson, B., Nunnally, T., & Cuir, G. D. (2001). Unwinding the Clock: Ten Thoughts on Our Relationship to Time (Unabridged Edition). Audio Literature.
Do good for its own sake. Do well out of spite. ✨🌈
My new motto for the fascist era.
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fuzzyleapfrog reblogged this · 4 months ago
Gamer, Nerd, Professor, Librarian, Meteorologist | Life Motto: Chaos responsibly | Delivers 🌈🦄🐶🐼🦙🍞🥒🎮📚📑🕊️ as well as quotes from research papers, non-fiction, and fiction books | Posts in English and German | Pronouns: she/her
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