crime stats are a measure of police action, not citizen action

The standard which is generally accepted as crime commission is actually those charged with committing a crime. It is not that black men commit more crimes, it is that black men are accused more with committing crimes. For the most part, we have no idea who commits the most crimes. The number of burglaries is not the number of houses burglarized, it is the number of times that someone reported a burglary and the officer was willing to write a report for a burglary.

the evils arising from the unjust and unequal distribution of wealth are not incidents of progress,

but tendencies which must bring progress to a halt. They will not cure themselves, but, on the contrary, must, unless their cause is removed, grow greater and greater, until they sweep us back into barbarism by the road every previous civilization has trod. These evils are not imposed by natural laws; they spring solely from social maladjustments which ignore natural laws, and in removing their cause we shall be giving an enormous impetus to progress.
The poverty which in the midst of abundance pinches and embrutes men, and all the manifold evils which flow from it, spring from a denial of justice. In permitting the monopolization of the opportunities which nature freely offers to all, we have ignored the fundamental law of justice—for, so far as we can see, when we view things upon a large scale, justice seems to be the supreme law of the universe. But by sweeping away this injustice and asserting the rights of all men to natural opportunities, we shall conform ourselves to the law—we shall remove the great cause of unnatural inequality in the distribution of wealth and power; we shall abolish poverty; tame the ruthless passions of greed; dry up the springs of vice and misery; light in dark places the lamp of knowledge; give new vigor to invention and a fresh impulse to discovery; substitute political strength for political weakness; and make tyranny and anarchy impossible.

Henry George in “Progress and Poverty”; P&P48_Chapter_43 @ 2:00

If learning to reason is, to a large extent, learning to anticipate counterarguments,

then the best solution might be to expose people to more counterarguments—to make people argue more. […]
Arguing, it seems, makes one a better reasoner across the board. By being confronted with counterarguments on a specific topic, one learns to anticipate their presence in other contexts.

Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber in “The Enigma of Reason”; pages 297-298

one of this world’s dominant characteristics, and certainly its greatest flaw, is its optimism.

Despite occasional moments of panic, most often connected to market crises, wars or pandemics, the secular age maintains an all but irrational devotion to a narrative of improvement, based on a messianic faith in the three great drivers of change: science, technology and commerce. Material improvements since the mid-eighteenth century have been so remarkable, and have so exponentially increased our comfort, safety, wealth and power, as to deal an almost fatal blow to our capacity to remain pessimistic – and therefore, crucially, to our ability to stay sane and content.

Alain de Botton in “Religion for Atheists”; page 182

Once Leviathan was in charge, the rules of the game changed.

A man’s ticket to fortune was no longer being the baddest knight in the area but making a pilgrimage to the king’s court and currying favor with him and his entourage. The court, basically a government bureaucracy, had no use for hotheads and loose cannons, but sought responsible custodians to run its provinces. The nobles had to change their marketing. They had to cultivate their manners, so as not to offend the king’s minions, and their empathy, to understand what they wanted. The manners appropriate for the court came to be called “courtly” manners or “courtesy.” The etiquette guides, with their advice on where to place one’s nasal mucus, originated as manuals for how to behave in the king’s court.

Steven Pinker in “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”; page 75

Everyone lives by others, profits by their activity and their labour and would be nothing without them;

it is up to society to ensure that the burdens and profits produced by all these interdependent activities, which all need each other, are equitably distributed

François Ewald, “A Concept of Social Law” in Dilemmas of Law in the Welfare State, page 43

We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something.

If this seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact. It may be that one wants to, or does, but it may also be that despite one’s best efforts, one is undone, in the face of the other, by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, by the prospect of the touch, by the memory of the feel. And so when we speak about my sexuality or my gender, as we do (and as we must) we mean something complicated by it. Neither of these is precisely a possession, but both are to be understood as modes of being dispossessed, ways of being for another or, indeed, by virtue of another.

Judith Butler, Undoing Gender; page 19