The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir

by Samantha Power

governments can either do harm or do good. “What we do,” he would say, “depends on one thing: the people.” Institutions, big and small, were made up of people. People had values, and people made choices.

How do the moral and religious traditions of nonviolence coexist with the moral imperative not to stand idly by in the face of suffering? How does one (particularly one who lacks sufficient information) measure the risks of action and inaction before deciding what to do? What would it mean if any country could take upon itself the decision to use force without any rules? Who should write these rules?

Obama spoke with unusual precision about his strengths and weaknesses. “I’m not some big original thinker,” he said. “But I listen well, I synthesize ideas, and I can generally figure out how to communicate what we need to do.”

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote movingly about having her own equivalent of a Bat Cave, but in the end, she found consolation by telling herself, “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”

we can’t always tell who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. We don’t always know what the proper course of action is. And so we’re sometimes tempted to withdraw into our own private lives, our own private struggles and ambitions, our own private gardens. But this is not one of those times.

“Never compare your insides to somebody else’s outsides.”

If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same

A leader in this effort was Hamdi Ulukaya, a Turkish immigrant to the United States who built his Chobani yogurt company into an industry giant while going out of his way to employ immigrants and refugees. Ulukaya pledged at Obama’s business summit to take responsibility for ensuring corporate follow-through after the President left office. Through what he calls the Tent Partnership for Refugees, Ulukaya has thus far enlisted 130 companies to house, provide banking and other services for, and—most precious of all—hire refugees.

“confirmation bias”—the inclination to hunt for, interpret, and remember information in a manner that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs.

“A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

Albert Hirschman’s book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. Published in 1970, Hirschman wrote that when someone is unhappy with a policy or practice, they can choose to “exit,” exercise “voice” (communicate grievances internally or through public protest), or be governed by “loyalty,” which “holds exit at bay and activates voice.”

We need to show the rest of the world what it means to respect the rule of law, and to put one’s country over one’s particular political preferences.

People who care, act, and refuse to give up may not change the world, but they can change many individual worlds.