Against Brute Force: D.H. Lawrence on the Superpower of Vulnerability

“Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy.” We live in a culture that has warped strength from the measure of our interior tenacity into the magnitude of our forceful self-assertion. We also live in a culture that has warped sensitivity from the measure of our porousness to life — the openhearted porousness from which all creative work springs — into a means of manipulation, extorting sympathy and slack, unconcerned