Daily Inspiration Quote by Flora Lewis

Civilization, Flora Lewis suggests, isn t a vibe. It s a line you either cross or you don t. The first sentence performs a reporter s fairness: she grants pluralism, the existence of "different degrees" and "many different ways" a nod to culture as lived, local, and not easily ranked. Then she snaps the elastic. "But one is civilized or is not". The pivot is the point: relativism gets offered, then disciplined.

Lewis was a journalist shaped by the century s largest stress tests for liberal democracy war, fascism, the Cold War, decolonization, the long argument over human rights. In that context, her formulation reads like a refusal to let "culture" become an alibi. You can dress barbarity in etiquette, ceremony, or ideology; you can claim your own definition of order. Lewis insists on a minimum standard beneath the surface variety: some acts (torture, political murder, the casual dehumanization of whole groups) don t become acceptable because they re practiced with tradition or efficiency.

The subtext is also about journalism itself. Reporting thrives on nuance and gradation, but it can be seduced into neutrality as a posture. Lewis is warning against that professional temptation: describing many forms of life doesn t require suspending moral thresholds. The quote works because it stages the tension between cosmopolitan openness and ethical nonnegotiables, then chooses a side without pretending the choice is cost-free.