Daily Inspiration Quote by Abdolkarim Soroush

Soroush is making an argument for intellectual humility that doubles as a political tactic. The insistence on “small, digestible bits” isn’t just a study tip; it’s a refusal of grand, totalizing slogans - the kind that dominate ideological regimes and revolutionary movements alike. By shrinking the scale of inquiry, he’s shrinking the space where power can hide behind foggy abstractions.

The key move is his fixation on definition: “define the concepts that we use and explain what components they consist of.” In a philosophical register, that’s analytic discipline. In Soroush’s Iranian context - post-revolutionary debates where “Islam,” “justice,” “freedom,” and “authority” are not neutral terms but instruments of legitimacy - definition becomes dissidence. If you force concepts to show their parts, you force institutions to show their assumptions. You make “Islamic government” answerable to criteria rather than aura.

The repetition of “We must” gives the passage a collective, almost civic urgency. He’s not describing a private method for scholars; he’s modeling a public ethic of reasoning. “Tackle small problems” sounds modest, but the subtext is radical: complex systems are best challenged through decompositions that can be argued, tested, and revised. That revision matters for Soroush, known for distinguishing religion itself from human understandings of religion - a distinction that makes theology fallible and therefore contestable.

The quote works because it turns restraint into leverage. It suggests that the path out of dogma isn’t louder conviction; it’s patient clarification, one dismantled concept at a time.