Echoes Across Time

Who Gets to Know? — Marxism on Knowledge

Marxist epistemology asks a question mainstream philosophy often avoids: whose knowledge counts, and who decides? Karl Marx, Patricia Hill Collins, George Orwell, Herbert Marcuse, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.

34 total quotes

“
The biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism is the cultural bomb.

—Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'oNovelist, Playwright & Theorist

Late Modern ERA • East Africa

“
The jungle does not lie. It keeps every secret you bury in it.

—Chin PengAuthor & Thinker

Post-War ERA • Southeast Asia

“
Money is the water we swim in. Most of us don't know we're wet.

—Ayad AkhtarPlaywright & Novelist

Digital Age ERA • South Asia

“
When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land.

—Jomo KenyattaPresident

Early Modern ERA • East Africa

“
The archive is not simply a place of storage, but also a site of power.

—Achille MbembePhilosopher & Theorist

Digital Age ERA • West Africa

“
Habitus is a system of dispositions. It is a 'sense of one's place'.

—Pierre BourdieuSociologist

Post-War ERA • Western Europe

“
The ruling ideas of each age are ever the ideas of its ruling class.

—Karl MarxPhilosopher & Economist

Industrial Age ERA • Western Europe

“
Theory is not inherently healing, liberatory, or revolutionary. It fulfills this function only when we ask that it do so.

—Bell HooksAuthor, Feminist & Theorist

Late Modern ERA • North America

“
Silence is not the absence of power but its most effective exercise.

—Patricia Hill CollinsSociologist, Scholar & Feminist

Late Modern ERA • North America

“
The 'pure' scientific and technological rationality which is in itself neutral becomes politicized rationality.

—Herbert MarcusePhilosopher & Sociologist

Post-War ERA • Western Europe

“
Dreams and reality are opposites. Action synthesizes them.

—Assata ShakurActivist

Late Modern ERA • North America

“
Religion is the opium of the people.

—Karl MarxPhilosopher & Economist

Industrial Age ERA • Western Europe

“
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

—George OrwellNovelist & Essayist

Early Modern ERA • Western Europe

“
Memory is the most subversive thing there is.

—Claribel AlegríaPoet & Novelist

Late Modern ERA • Central America

“
Philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point, however, is to change it.

—Karl MarxPhilosopher & Economist

Industrial Age ERA • Western Europe

“
What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?

—C.L.R. JamesHistorian, Novelist & Theorist

Post-War ERA • Caribbean

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The global south is not a location, but a condition.

—Achille MbembePhilosopher & Theorist

Digital Age ERA • West Africa

“
The most successful ideological effects are those that have no need of words.

—Pierre BourdieuSociologist

Post-War ERA • Western Europe

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Reading the world always precedes reading the word.

—Paulo FreirePhilosopher

Late Modern ERA • Latin America

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Language is not a neutral instrument. It is a stake and a weapon in struggles for power.

—Pierre BourdieuSociologist

Late Modern ERA • Western Europe

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