About Us - Voices

The beautiful graphic was produced by Steven Anderson who is leading the 'Voices' strand of NothingAboutUs.

Full text for Human Megaphone is here:

-->

// = breaks in reading

Steinbeck

Results, not causes;// results, not causes.// The causes lie deep and simple//—the causes are a hunger in a stomach, multiplied a million times;// a hunger in a single soul,// hunger for joy and some security, multiplied a million times//; muscles and mind aching to grow, to work, to create, //multiplied a million times. //The last clear definite function of man//—muscles aching to work, //minds aching to create beyond the single need//—this is man.

To build a wall, to build a house, a dam//, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself,// and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house, the dam//; to take hard muscles from the lifting,// to take the clear lines and form from conceiving.// For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work,// walks up the stairs of his concepts,// emerges ahead of his accomplishments.

This you may say of man//—when theories change and crash//, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought//, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate,// man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes.// Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back.// This you may say and know it and know it.

And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live//—for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken.// And this you can know—fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept,// for this one quality is the foundation of Manself,// and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.

Reid

Reject the insidious pressures in society// that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you,// that would caution silence in the face of injustice// lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement.

The challenge we face is that of rooting out anything and everything that distorts and devalues human relations