It's a long story, but our acquisition of an iPhone has led to our spending more time with the hard copy of the Sunday Times' Week in Review section. Wherein this week we found the following in two separate articles:

Mr. Poirier himself cherished self-contradiction. He helped enshrine the nation’s literary classics at the Library of America, but he also wrote that "works of art are not required to exist. There is nothing outside of them that requires their existence. If Shakespeare had never existed we would not miss his works, for there would be nothing missing."

Literature, in other words, was not sacred or even necessary. But it mattered enormously, because, at its most potent, it insisted that we not take ourselves, or our words, for granted. "We ought to be grateful to language," Mr. Poirier wrote, "for making life messier than ever."

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The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act....

It should be borne in mind that the target is always trying to shift responsibility to get out of being the target. There is a constant squirming and moving and strategy — purposeful, and malicious at times, other times just for straight self-survival — on the part of the designated target. The forces of change must keep this in mind and pin that target down securely.