Robert Jensen Quotes

• Toxic masculinity hurts men, but there’s a big difference between women dealing with the constant threat of being raped, beaten, and killed by the men in their lives, and men not being able to cry.

  Robert Jensen

  Hurt, Men, Differences

  Robert Jensen (2007). “Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity”

  54 Copy quote

• People routinely assume that pornography is such a difficult and divisive issue because it's about sex. In fact, this culture struggles unsuccessfully with pornography because it is about men's cruelty to women, and the pleasure men sometimes take in that cruelty. And that is much more difficult for people-- men and women-- to face.

  Robert Jensen

  Sex, Struggle, Men

  Robert Jensen (2007). “Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity”

  40 Copy quote

• The pornographers are not a deviation from the norm. Their presence in the mainstream shouldn't be surprising, because they represent mainstream values: The logic of domination and subordination that is central to patriarchy, hyper-patriotic nationalism, white supremacy, and a predatory corporate capitalism.

  Robert Jensen

  Patriotic, White, Logic

  12 Copy quote

• Mainstream politicians will continue to protect existing systems of power, corporate executives will continue to maximize profit without concern, and the majority of people will continue to avoid these questions. It’s the job of people with critical sensibilities—those who consistently speak out for justice and sustainability, even when it’s difficult—not to back away just because the world has grown more ominous.

  Robert Jensen

  Jobs, Speaks Out, People

  15 Copy quote

• We do not have the luxury of despair right now. There is too much at stake, for too many people.

  Robert Jensen

  Luxury, People, Despair

  "Why I Will Not Rally Around the President" by Robert Jensen, www.counterpunch.org. September 15, 2001.

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• We're all in the race game, so to speak, either consciously or unconsciously. We can overtly support white-supremacist racial projects. We can reject white supremacy and support racial projects aimed at a democratic distibution of power and a just distribution of resources. Or we can claim to not be interested in race, in which case we almost certainly will end up tacitly supporting white supremacy by virtue of our unwillingness to confront it. In a society in which white supremacy has structured every aspect of our world, there can be no claim to neutrality.

  Robert Jensen

  Our World, Race, Games

  8 Copy quote

• The way we are educated and entertained keep us from knowing about or understanding the pain of others.

  Robert Jensen

  Pain, Knowing, Empathy

  7 Copy quote

• History matters. It matters whether we tell the truth about what happened centuries ago, and it matters whether we tell the truth about more recent history. It matters because if we can't we will never be able to face the present, guaranteeing that our future will be doomed.

  Robert Jensen

  Justice, Matter, Able

  Robert Jensen (2005). “The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege”, p.44, City Lights Books

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• The United States is a society in which people not only can get by without knowing much about the wider world but are systematically encouraged not to think independently or critically, and instead to accept the mythology of the United States as a benevolent, misunderstood giant as it lumbers around the world trying to do good.

  Robert Jensen

  Thinking, Knowing, People

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• Being rational - along with being clear and honest - are important if we are to create the needed shift in fundamental thinking necessary to make it possible to pull this world back from the brink of multiple disasters on ecological, cultural, political, and economic fronts.

  Robert Jensen

  Thinking, Political, Important

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• Simply put: Thanksgiving is the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers. ...How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis?

  Robert Jensen

  Country, Father, Blessed

  7 Copy quote

• People are people, and grief that is limited to those within a specific political boundary denies the humanity of others.

  Robert Jensen

  Grief, People, Political

  4 Copy quote

• I am against nationalism, and I am against patriotism. They are both the dark side. It is time not simply to redefine a kinder-and-gentler patriotism, but to sweep away the notion and acknowledge it as morally, politically, and intellectually bankrupt. It is time to scrap patriotism.

  Robert Jensen

  Dark, Nihilism, Sides

  Robert Jensen (2004). “Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity”, p.39, City Lights Books

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• This is the simple discovery which we must confront. We were given a place in the creation, with a beauty beyond telling, and we have failed to care for it. And as our collective contempt for the non-human world has intensified, so has our contempt for each other. We have failed to care for each other.

  Robert Jensen

  Simple, Discovery, World

  8 Copy quote

• How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis?

  Robert Jensen

  Country, Views, Political

  7 Copy quote

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