Yes, but... one might also suggest that your original insight/perspective is not without value. To say, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," is certainly not without specific and profound meaning. We tend to go through our lives thinking about how a system of government -- which is really just…
Yes, but... one might also suggest that your original insight/perspective is not without value. To say, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," is certainly not without specific and profound meaning. We tend to go through our lives thinking about how a system of government -- which is really just a way of framing how the totality of a community the size of a country -- is serving our needs. But it's an important flip at key moments to think in the other direction: how our daily choices, values, priorities, etc can serve to make that totality better, stronger, more able to stand up to its existential obstacles. It's difficult to see that as cliche or mundane or, as didion puts it, as having "no meaning at all".
Hello, B... Kennedy's words do have a specific meaning for me. Perhaps those more cynical than I (and I have a fairly healthy dose of that these days) may find those words cliche, but I don't. However one parses them out, they impart a specific idea in my mind, and I happen to agree with it. But what Sherm had to say does help my understanding of how other people with other perspectives / experiences might take a different meaning from them (or other such statements), or even find them meaningless, as Didion apparently did. Likewise, I found Jack B's take on the line from the guerilla's book also useful in this regard.
I'd say you're dead on in what you said about how we spend most of our time thinking about how "government" serves us, so when someone proposes a reverse in the direction of that thought it would no doubt be harder for some to assign meaning than others. Just as physical habits are hard to break, so it is with some mental ones as well. And I think that's also a part of the problem of "meaning" differing among people who are reading / hearing the same words.
I've found all of this quite interesting. I've always liked our language and the words it consists of, and how we use them to communicate with each other in both mundane and profound ways. Thanks for taking the time to give me some more input. As with the others who did, I do appreciate it.
Yes, but... one might also suggest that your original insight/perspective is not without value. To say, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," is certainly not without specific and profound meaning. We tend to go through our lives thinking about how a system of government -- which is really just a way of framing how the totality of a community the size of a country -- is serving our needs. But it's an important flip at key moments to think in the other direction: how our daily choices, values, priorities, etc can serve to make that totality better, stronger, more able to stand up to its existential obstacles. It's difficult to see that as cliche or mundane or, as didion puts it, as having "no meaning at all".
Hello, B... Kennedy's words do have a specific meaning for me. Perhaps those more cynical than I (and I have a fairly healthy dose of that these days) may find those words cliche, but I don't. However one parses them out, they impart a specific idea in my mind, and I happen to agree with it. But what Sherm had to say does help my understanding of how other people with other perspectives / experiences might take a different meaning from them (or other such statements), or even find them meaningless, as Didion apparently did. Likewise, I found Jack B's take on the line from the guerilla's book also useful in this regard.
I'd say you're dead on in what you said about how we spend most of our time thinking about how "government" serves us, so when someone proposes a reverse in the direction of that thought it would no doubt be harder for some to assign meaning than others. Just as physical habits are hard to break, so it is with some mental ones as well. And I think that's also a part of the problem of "meaning" differing among people who are reading / hearing the same words.
I've found all of this quite interesting. I've always liked our language and the words it consists of, and how we use them to communicate with each other in both mundane and profound ways. Thanks for taking the time to give me some more input. As with the others who did, I do appreciate it.