It's mom's absolute favorite book. It's basically the one lesson mom got out of graduate school, from a professor that really knew changing the world began in his classroom. It was for the small price of $100k (I guess Pom's and I can kiss a private education goodbye), but mom doesn't like to talk about that. I presume it would have been slightly cheaper if she had found it in the discount section of Barnes and Nobel, but no such luck.
So after feeling pretty down over the fact that the "United" States just elected someone who has questionably unifying intentions, she decided to center herself again and pick up the one book that always make her look inwardly. She also has food poisoning AND it's a school holiday...it's been a ROUGH week.
Low and behold (because we simply can NOT leave mom alone for more than two seconds), I demanded that she read to me.
I picked a page and pointed. She read out loud...
..."The people of your culture cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man. They want desperately to perceive the vast gulf between man and the rest of creation. This mythology of human superiority justifies their doing whatever they please with the world, just the way Hitler's mythology of Aryan superiority justified his doing whatever he pleased with Europe. But in the end this mythology is not deeply satisfying. The Takers are profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory, and they live in it like an army of occupation, alienated and isolated by their extraordinary specialness."
Um, I'm not sure this was a coincidence.
According to mom, this international family of ours aims to be "Leavers," and not "Takers."
I'm only three, but maybe in ten years I may understand what she means. I then opted for, "Oh, The Places You'll Go," and rice pudding.
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