"When people say 'let's do something about it,' they mean 'let's get hold of the political machinery so that we can do something to somebody else.' And that somebody is invariably you"
About this Quote
Chodorov’s line is a trapdoor under the warm carpet of civic optimism. The familiar rallying cry - “let’s do something about it” - usually arrives wrapped in the language of shared responsibility, the kind that flatters listeners into feeling like protagonists of progress. Chodorov strips that costume off in one motion: the “something” is rarely solving a problem; it’s acquiring leverage. Politics, in his framing, is not a public forum but a machine, and machines aren’t moral actors. They amplify whoever gets their hands on the controls.
The subtext is a deep suspicion of collective rhetoric. “Let’s” pretends consensus; it erases the real division between the people who will steer the policy and the people who will absorb its force. By translating “do something” into “do something to somebody else,” Chodorov points to the coercive edge that polite politics keeps offstage: taxes extracted, rules imposed, rights narrowed, behavior disciplined. He’s warning that activism can be less about compassion than about permission - the permission to compel.
That final twist, “and that somebody is invariably you,” is the quote’s real engine. It refuses the reader the comfortable role of benevolent reformer. It’s not merely cynical; it’s prophylactic, a rhetorical vaccine against the intoxicating idea that power will be used cleanly once “our side” holds it. Historically, this sits squarely in mid-century American libertarian thought: anti-statist, anti-crusade, wary of mass politics as a moral alibi for domination.
The subtext is a deep suspicion of collective rhetoric. “Let’s” pretends consensus; it erases the real division between the people who will steer the policy and the people who will absorb its force. By translating “do something” into “do something to somebody else,” Chodorov points to the coercive edge that polite politics keeps offstage: taxes extracted, rules imposed, rights narrowed, behavior disciplined. He’s warning that activism can be less about compassion than about permission - the permission to compel.
That final twist, “and that somebody is invariably you,” is the quote’s real engine. It refuses the reader the comfortable role of benevolent reformer. It’s not merely cynical; it’s prophylactic, a rhetorical vaccine against the intoxicating idea that power will be used cleanly once “our side” holds it. Historically, this sits squarely in mid-century American libertarian thought: anti-statist, anti-crusade, wary of mass politics as a moral alibi for domination.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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