"The world does not need tourists who ride by in a bus clucking their tongues. The world as it is needs those who will love it enough to change it, with what they have, where they are"
About this Quote
Fulghum’s jab at “tourists who ride by in a bus clucking their tongues” isn’t really about travel; it’s a demolition of the safe, spectator posture that modern life practically sells us as a lifestyle. The image is perfectly petty and precise: sealed behind glass, consuming other people’s reality like scenery, performing moral disapproval (“clucking”) without paying any cost. It’s compassion with the hazard removed.
The subtext is a critique of detached righteousness. The tourist doesn’t just fail to help; they turn the world’s mess into a fleeting anecdote, a thing to remark upon before moving on. Fulghum frames that as useless at best, parasitic at worst. The bus becomes a metaphor for distance: privilege, insulation, and the fantasy that noticing counts as engagement.
Then he pivots to a harder, more bracing ethic: “love it enough to change it.” Not rage, not contempt, not the cheap dopamine of critique. Love, here, isn’t sentimental; it’s an obligation. He tightens the screws with “with what they have, where they are,” a line that quietly rejects the classic alibis: I’m not ready, I don’t have resources, I’m not important, I’ll start later. It’s an anti-heroic call to local agency.
Contextually, this fits Fulghum’s broader project as a plainspoken moralist: he uses everyday imagery to smuggle in demanding civic instruction. The quote works because it flatters no one. It tells the comfortable observer that the world doesn’t need their commentary; it needs their participation.
The subtext is a critique of detached righteousness. The tourist doesn’t just fail to help; they turn the world’s mess into a fleeting anecdote, a thing to remark upon before moving on. Fulghum frames that as useless at best, parasitic at worst. The bus becomes a metaphor for distance: privilege, insulation, and the fantasy that noticing counts as engagement.
Then he pivots to a harder, more bracing ethic: “love it enough to change it.” Not rage, not contempt, not the cheap dopamine of critique. Love, here, isn’t sentimental; it’s an obligation. He tightens the screws with “with what they have, where they are,” a line that quietly rejects the classic alibis: I’m not ready, I don’t have resources, I’m not important, I’ll start later. It’s an anti-heroic call to local agency.
Contextually, this fits Fulghum’s broader project as a plainspoken moralist: he uses everyday imagery to smuggle in demanding civic instruction. The quote works because it flatters no one. It tells the comfortable observer that the world doesn’t need their commentary; it needs their participation.
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