Please help! What does this quotation mean? Easy 10 points!

Question

"In a culture that rips paradoxes apart, many people know nothing of the rich dialectic of solitude and community; they know only a daily whiplash between loneliness and the crowd." - Parker Palmer

Any help would be greatly appreciated and as always 10 points for the best interpreatation! Thanks!

Answer 1

i'm thinking as i write so it maybe a bit jumbled!!!

1) it signifies the differences between being content and being detatched

'the rich dialectic of solitude and community' is content and profound, something that you can happily experience, be apart of or be content with your own compnay and thoughts

'daily whisplash.......' is the opposite, where you can be only one or the other, lonely or in a crowd - or even lonely within a crown as is one of the themes of modern and post modern lit theory, alienation, detatchment, unsatisfied and gray.

notice the use of language 'whiplash, loneliness' negative, harsh, being whiped, affects after an accident (maybe something to do with what u are studying, like the 'death of god' theory, or if something significant has happened to the culture)

rather than 'rich, solitude' which is warm and comforting (solitude in context)

it seems that in a culture (today's im assuming) that 'rips', almost greedily, beastial (animal like though more grotesque) that is hungry or hungrily rips paradoxes - falseities, maybe looking for truth because they are unable to experience any as they are lost, unfeeling of anything but loneliness and unreal, hazing into the crowd, conforming into the gray that is the current culture, like sheep, half dead, unaware, numb almost, can not know the contentness of just being, just experiencing and just being happy, because they only know the daily - short term, continuing cycle, routine, of loneliness and the crowd, moving from one to the other within the day, just to be repeated the following day.

so it's about a culture who can not be content and are hungrily trying to look for truths but are unable to experience it because of the way they have been driven (whipped) to exist.  they rip at paradoxes in vain.  they are unable to uncover and discover because they do not have the pleasure of solitude and community to feel apart of.  they are all single beings, uprooted, with no foundations but themselves which simply, are not enough.  

sorry if it makes little sense, i was thinking out loud!!!

hope i helped though!

Answer 2

This culture that the quote is referring to has enough reason and knowledge that it can make sense out of the hardest of paradoxes, yet they don't know how to become a community and consequentially end up being lonely or join with the crowd and end up doing what everyone else is doing.