"It is funny that men who are supposed to be scientific cannot get themselves to realise the basic principle of physics, that action and reaction are equal and opposite, that when you persecute people you always rouse them to be strong and stronger"
About this Quote
Stein lands the punch where it hurts: on the vanity of people who wear “science” as a badge while ignoring its most elementary lesson. By calling it “funny,” she isn’t amused so much as clinically scornful. The joke is on the self-styled rationalists who can recite laws of motion yet can’t recognize the social version playing out in front of them: persecution doesn’t pacify; it organizes.
The move is characteristically Stein: take a “basic principle” and drag it out of the lab into human behavior, where the messy variables are pride, fear, and solidarity. The subtext is a rebuke of technocratic smugness, the kind that treats politics as a problem to be managed rather than a volatile field of forces. Her metaphor isn’t meant as a neat equation; it’s an accusation. If you insist on applying pressure to a group, don’t feign surprise when that pressure produces resistance, identity, and courage. Oppression is a recruitment strategy.
Context matters. Stein lived through the upheavals of early 20th-century Europe, with nationalism hardening into state violence and “scientific” language routinely drafted to justify social hierarchies. In that atmosphere, the word “scientific” can read as a dog whistle for authority: experts, administrators, ideologues claiming inevitability. Stein punctures that inevitability. She’s reminding readers that power invites counterpower, and that the persecuted aren’t merely victims in a static tableau; they’re pushed into motion, sometimes into history-making motion.
It’s also a sly warning: if you want stability, stop manufacturing your own opposition.
The move is characteristically Stein: take a “basic principle” and drag it out of the lab into human behavior, where the messy variables are pride, fear, and solidarity. The subtext is a rebuke of technocratic smugness, the kind that treats politics as a problem to be managed rather than a volatile field of forces. Her metaphor isn’t meant as a neat equation; it’s an accusation. If you insist on applying pressure to a group, don’t feign surprise when that pressure produces resistance, identity, and courage. Oppression is a recruitment strategy.
Context matters. Stein lived through the upheavals of early 20th-century Europe, with nationalism hardening into state violence and “scientific” language routinely drafted to justify social hierarchies. In that atmosphere, the word “scientific” can read as a dog whistle for authority: experts, administrators, ideologues claiming inevitability. Stein punctures that inevitability. She’s reminding readers that power invites counterpower, and that the persecuted aren’t merely victims in a static tableau; they’re pushed into motion, sometimes into history-making motion.
It’s also a sly warning: if you want stability, stop manufacturing your own opposition.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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