Advice For Those Who Want To Change The World

Advice For Those Who Want To Change The World
GERMANY - CIRCA 2002: Wanderer above the sea of fog, by Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images); Amburgo, Hamburger Kunsthalle. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)
GERMANY - CIRCA 2002: Wanderer above the sea of fog, by Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images); Amburgo, Hamburger Kunsthalle. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

The world needs changing in all sorts of urgent ways: the great question is how to do it. The most popular and appealing answer has long been that one should try to write a book, retreat to a mountain-top, lay down one’s thoughts with passion and cogency, try hard to sell as many copies as possible and wait for change to emerge.

Immense prestige has surrounded this activity for the last 200 years at least and it can seem, from a distance, that it has been deeply successful as well. Some books have undeniably made a splash (Das Capital, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Silent Spring, The God Delusion…)

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot