I propitiated the knife-wielding deities with presents of books.
Referring to her surgeons
The Marxist revolutions of the past assumed a similar paternalistic privilege of acting on behalf of peoples who might not particularly agree with the actions or the goals. The vanguard was supposed to lead the revolution and the masses eventually to wake up and follow. It was the end that justifie…
Empathy makes you imagine the sensation of the torture, of the hunger, of the loss. You make that person into yourself, you inscribe their suffering on your own body or heart or mind, and then you respond to their suffering as though it were your own. Identification, we say, to mean that I extend s…
The nerveless part of the body remains alive, but pain and sensation define the self; what you cannot feel is not you; what you cannot feel you do not readily take care of; your extremities become lost to you. [...]
