Top 15 Mark Satin Quotes

Mark and I became "conference buddies." He and I were both on the road a lot in those days, each of us offering our particular message, and we would meet up at one conference or another. I was always glad to see Mark. I saw him then – and still see him now – as one of the true "carriers of spirit" who have dedicated their lives to bringing a fiery vision to life in order to better humanity. If anyone can claim to be a spiritual teacher, Mark can, for he teaches us how to claim and express the human spirit of freedom, potential, and wholeness.

Satin ... helped create the first edition of the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants which was published under his name. ... Fetherling observed that Satin was highly publicity conscious and reports once having heard him say, "Anonymity would kill me." Perhaps Satin's interests ran in the family, for his mother was interviewed about her son in the Ladies' Home Journal and his father started a publishing house. ... A reporter who interviewed Satin ... described him as "unremarkable looking. Not tall, not terribly tidy, with brown hair and eyes and a bit of length to his nose. A bit of length to his hair, too, though not enough to startle."

It has been said that the difference between successful people and most others is that successful people "fail" more often. In other words, experiments always yield information. Mark's life – a series of experiments – shows that it's important for all of us to rediscover the importance of commitment and experiment. Mark is beginning to view his life trajectory with a little more compassion. He likes to say he's living evidence of "what you can do with determination and no fancy credentials or resources." And yet he did have one priceless resource: the courage of his conviction. In certain esoteric systems, the Fool is considered the most advanced level of spiritual attainment. The Fool, in this light, is trusting enough to throw himself headlong into life. The Fool makes mistakes – and thereby makes discoveries. This is a book of such discoveries.

Were the '80s as bad as some people think? At least one social interpreter, Mark Satin ..., says no. ... Satin maintains that a new cultural archetype emerged during the '80s, "the caring individual," or one who is equally committed to self-development and social change, to individual freedom and social justice. A true grassroots democracy, he argues, requires these personally and socially responsible individuals. ... Just as he rejects the "media caricature" of the '80s, he rejects some of the romanticization of the 1960s. An antiwar activist who fled to Canada to organize similarly disaffected Americans, Satin ... recalls the era as divisive and judgmental, with too much emphasis on us-vs.-them. "I hope what we're moving toward is an integration of individualism and community with acceptance of the diversity in our society," he says.

That folks like Mark Satin now package their wares in the soft pastels of personalist psychology rather than the primary colors (among them, red) of Herbert Marcuse helps keep the national blood pressure down, but in truth it's simply another example of the Ralph Lauren-ization of American politics.

Satin grew up in a small town in Minnesota and felt an instinctive sort of rebellion, but unlike Bob Dylan, he did not play the guitar and so had no way of expressing it.

The most important departure from politics-as-usual that Satin ascribes to the radical middle is a commitment to finding a higher common ground that integrates best insights from both the left and the right. ... There is no way to do justice here to Satin's outpouring of specific policy proposals. No one will agree with all of them. But there is a good deal of fresh thinking here, and some of the policy ideas Satin presents may turn out to be very important. The most troubling aspect of Radical Middle is Satin's tendency to exaggerate how far along this approach to politics really is. ... Satin's tendency to set out his own favorite policy ideas as if they are the official position of the radical middle, for which he is serving as spokesman, is problematic. It risks turning the radical middle into a new ideology with a detailed political platform.

In his new book, Radical Middle ..., which provided the initial inspiration for this article, Satin fleshes out pragmatic new policy ideas. ... Satin draws inspiration from nonpolitical realms of society where people are blending what works from various orthodoxies. He points to developments like integrative medicine, ... socially responsible business, ... and judges' increasing use of psychology, economics, and even literature in crafting legal opinions. "Politics," he says ruefully, "is the last area of society where this kind of creative thinking is taking hold."

Mark Satin's irritating Radical Middle is a timely clue to what gave liberalism a bad name. It opens breathlessly. ... Satin ... perceive[s] obvious solutions to almost everything. The greater part of the book consists of short chapters that state daunting problems and then summarily solve them. ... Why do so many liberal preachments grate like glass shards on a blackboard? Well, maybe it's the haut à bas tone, the disdain of politics, the smug armchair analyses, the insufferable smart-aleckness.

Even though Satin continually inveighs against the "impractical idealism" that (by his own admission) much of his own career exemplifies, his book ultimately places him in the sturdy tradition of "idealistic" American reformers who think smart and principled people unencumbered by political constraints can change everything. For all the stylistic differences, Radical Middle echoes the message of Ross Perot's 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, which placed unlimited cash at the disposal of the proposition that a (nominally) uncorrupted and nonpartisan candidate could simply "open up the hood" of American government and fix things.

Distinctions between the two parties are of little interest to Satin. Having spent his entire political life outside conventional politics, Satin firmly believes that the current system can't lead to the moderate majority he wants. The most "radical" thing about Mark Satin's Radical Middle is the extraordinary depth of the author's belief that identifying solutions to America's problems depends on spurning conventional party politics.

The term "radical middle" debuted on the national stage in 1995 in a Newsweek cover story by Joe Klein. ... Almost a decade later, the electorate is more polarized than ever. ... Not so, according to New Age activist-cum-sensible centrist, Mark Satin, whose new book Radical Middle announces the arrival of a kinder, gentler radical middle, Think of it as a "compassionate conservatism" for the center-left. ... Satin wants his book to be the movement's manifesto. Like the political newsletter he's been issuing since 1999, .. Satin's rhetoric employs New Age emotionalism in the service of mostly hard-nosed, rational solutions to a broad spectrum of social and political problems. True to claim, the policy proposals cataloged here don't fit neatly into the standard left / right model. ... The most provocative ideas combine a leftist concern for the commonwealth with a conservative instinct for individual responsibility and self-reliance.

Mark Satin, in his Washington newsletter Radical Middle, describes the domination of the public debate about the [biotechnology] issue by two different groups. ... Satin's report carries the encouraging news of an emerging group with a different voice, one that is "nuanced, hopeful, adult" and that he calls the "voice of cautious optimism." It is essentially a willingness to listen to both sides of the argument.

New Options is spearheading a movement that is still nameless. He [Satin] no longer uses the "New Age" moniker, as it now conjures up Shirley MacLaine and Windham Hill. Though he's active in the U.S. Green movement, ... he's reluctant to identify his newsletter as a Green publication. "The U.S. Green movement so far is characterized by an ineptness of organizing strategy and a substantial degree of cultural alienation from the American mainstream," he says. ... But Satin isn't reaching for the brick pile. He says he's content with New Options' pragmatic stance. "I think it's a third path which alienated people can move to once they become bored with their own alienation."

New Options suggests that the New Age / New Left has to continue to evolve into the "New Center" – or fail, for real this time, to change the world.