"Back in the mid-1980s, congressional hearings were held after we brought this litigation, and held up the first experiment. At that time, I went in front of Congress, along with the major agencies involved with this"
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Rifkin’s sentence reads like a procedural footnote, but the intent is unmistakably political: he’s staking a claim to disruption. By anchoring the story in “the mid-1980s” and “congressional hearings,” he’s not reminiscing so much as establishing a credentialed origin myth - the moment when a private actor (him) forced the state to pay attention. The phrase “after we brought this litigation” quietly centers litigation as a lever, not a last resort. In Rifkin’s worldview, courts and hearings aren’t neutral arenas; they’re amplifiers you can trigger if you know where the system is soft.
The subtext is a choreography of power. “Held up the first experiment” is doing double duty: it’s an admission of obstruction framed as public service. He doesn’t say “stopped” or “blocked,” which would sound ideological; he says “held up,” which implies a temporary pause for democratic review. That rhetorical choice recasts delay as accountability, and it subtly invites the listener to see scientific momentum as something that must earn legitimacy, not something automatically entitled to proceed.
Context matters: the mid-1980s were the early, jittery years of biotech and genetic engineering, when regulatory frameworks lagged behind laboratory capability. Rifkin made a career out of turning that lag into a stage, forcing agencies, corporations, and lawmakers into public conflict. “Along with the major agencies involved” signals he wasn’t shouting from the sidewalk; he was inside the room, asserting parity with institutional authority. The line is less about facts than about authorship: history happened, he implies, because he pushed.
The subtext is a choreography of power. “Held up the first experiment” is doing double duty: it’s an admission of obstruction framed as public service. He doesn’t say “stopped” or “blocked,” which would sound ideological; he says “held up,” which implies a temporary pause for democratic review. That rhetorical choice recasts delay as accountability, and it subtly invites the listener to see scientific momentum as something that must earn legitimacy, not something automatically entitled to proceed.
Context matters: the mid-1980s were the early, jittery years of biotech and genetic engineering, when regulatory frameworks lagged behind laboratory capability. Rifkin made a career out of turning that lag into a stage, forcing agencies, corporations, and lawmakers into public conflict. “Along with the major agencies involved” signals he wasn’t shouting from the sidewalk; he was inside the room, asserting parity with institutional authority. The line is less about facts than about authorship: history happened, he implies, because he pushed.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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