Zephyr Teachout Quotes
When I was in college in the late 80s-early 90s, there was a sense that history was on a straight path toward democracy everywhere. Well, that's not true. It was also not true that there's a single era of oligarchy, because we showed we could do something about it.
This was a very prescient prediction. Russia and China as well as lesser communist states have followed his prediction.
This is a very important quotation because it illustrates a characteristic of most South American (and many other world) cultures. Namely, that respect and dignity are more important than freedom. There is even a Spanish term conveying the importance of respect: Respecto! This is very different from the Anglo-American tradition where if one has freedom, he is little concerned with what others think of him, and no amount of respect would offset the loss of freedom. The person who is free, has the dignity that he needs. The importance of respect over freedom was also a major characteristic of European Fascism in the 1930s.
Zephyr Rain Teachout is an American attorney, author, political candidate, and associate professor of law at Fordham University.
