BoatBanter.com - Grapes of Wrath

As I reread "The Grapes of Wrath" for the umpteenth time, and given the
current state of world affairs, I've gained a new appreciation for the
vision and wisdom of John Steinbeck.

Scout

"This you say is man - when theories change and crash, when schools,
philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious,
economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully,
mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only
half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know
it. This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the
marketplace, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, and the crushed bodies
drain filthily in the dust. You may know it in this way. If the step were
not being taken, if the stumbling forward ache were not alive, the bombs
would not fall, the throats would not be cut. Fear the time when the bombs
stop falling while the bombers live - for every bomb is proof that the
spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great
owners live - for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being
taken. In this you can know - fear the time when manself will not suffer and
die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of man self, in
this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe."

{snip}

"One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the
highway to the West. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I'm
alone and I am bewildered. In the night one family camps in a ditch and
other family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squad on their
hams and the women and children listen. Here's the node, you who hate change
and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting man apart; make them hate,
fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is
the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and from
its splitting grows the thing you hate - "we lost our land." The danger is
here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from his first
"we" there grows a still more dangerous thing; "I have a little food" plus
"I have none". If from this problem the sum is "we have a little food", the
thing is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little
multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two-men
squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single
pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their
souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby
has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mothers blanket -
take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning -
from "I" to "we".

If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might
preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could
know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might
survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you
forever into "I", and cuts you off forever from the "we". "

-- (from The Grapes of Wrath)