What is at Stake?

“What sets the world in motion is the interplay
of differences,
their attractions and repulsions.
Life is plurality, death is uniformity.
By suppressing differences and peculiarities,
by eliminating different civilizations and cultures,
progress weakens life and favors death.
The ideal of a single civilization impoverishes and mutilates us.
Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears,
diminishes the possibility of life.”
--Octavio Paz