A Quote by Geoffrey West
One of the remarkable things about slums is that they do develop their own social organization and economy and even culture that is, on some level, functional and in some cases, remarkably resilient. This is kind of amazing.
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There is a level of disrespect for the office that occurs. And that occurs in some cases and maybe even many cases because he is African American. There’s no question about that and it’s the kind of thing nobody ever says but everybody’s thinking it.
Twenty years ago, you might have been pessimistic and said there's no hope. But these days, some of our very biggest companies are acting remarkably cleanly. And in some cases, although not all cases, the CEOs are the driving forces behind that.
I've gotten to do some really amazing things, gone to some really amazing places, and just have some really unique experiences. And if I have one regret looking back it's that - not a regret even, because I think that's kind of labeling depression as something you can control - but I just wish I would have been able to enjoy it more fully.
There's this belief that some things can be taken seriously in an intellectual way, while some things are only entertainment or only a commodity. Or there's some kind of critical consensus that some things are "good," and some things are garbage, throwaway culture. And I think the difference between them, in a lot of ways, is actually much less than people think. Especially when you get down to how they affect the audience.
The real controversy comes with anthropologists - not all, but some - who see themselves as studying culture, and they then see culture from the perspective of humans, which is what they study. From their perspective, or, from some of their perspectives, it's sort of heresy to even talk about culture in any other animal. Others would say, "Yeah, you can talk about it, but our definitions of culture are so utterly different from yours and include things like values, and so on, which you've never shown to exist in any of these other creatures."
Some of my fans don't really like it when I respond to people who say things that are trying to be hurtful on social media. But I think it's kind of funny. There's a lot of things that make me laugh, that people would try and say those things. I mean, there's some that I can't even retweet or respond to just because of how bad it is.
You experience other cultures to give you a kind of shock that makes you look at your own culture. You appreciate it more as a result of being out of it, but you also realise there are some things lacking in your culture.
What is interesting about the revolts is that they show that there is never anything purely spontaneous, and there is always some thinking and discussion, and thus some kind of organization involved in it.
Slums could be thought of as the development of a special organ, or they could be thought of as a tumor that's grown, and in some ways is unhealthy and could ultimately lead to the city's destruction. My own feeling is that slums are probably a bit of both.
Yes, there's something dangerous about turning people into token social activists. I was thinking about this recently with our pop-culture feminism, when feminism is such a buzzword in the media now. We're covering it in a way that we haven't before, but also in a way that's way more surface level. And while I think that there's some danger in that, I also think it's a great gateway for some people.
I think we have some amazing leaders. But then we have some leaders who turn a blind eye to things that contribute negatively to a really difficult culture for women.
A lot of knowledge in any kind of an organization is what we call task knowledge. These are things that people who have been there a long time understand are important, but they may not know how to talk about them. It's often called the culture of the organization.
Some of the things I think I learned from that were very educational as far as just paying bills - the basics in dealing with a restaurant like that. It was just life - the education involved in running the organization, even on a small level.
We still have a lot of work to do in American culture. More open-mindedness is happening - in some cases rapidly, in some, slowly.
I always resist seeing my own personal motivation in my work, but I guess it must be there on some level. And I do feel very much that my life follows the kinds of things I talk about in my books. I've always thought of myself as an insanely lucky person, so perhaps the success of my first two books led me to want to examine this phenomenon on some unconscious level.
Even if they try to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there are some things so precious, some things so eternally true that they are worth dying for. And if a person has not found something to die for, that person isn't fit to live!
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