[Essay] Born in iniquity and conceived in sin

[vrundap2002]

Please help me analyze this quote.

Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.


Thorstein Veblen

 

[emsr2d2]

Welcome to the forum. :hi:

Please note that I have changed your thread title so that it includes some of the words you are asking us about. I have moved your actual request ("Please help me analyze this quote" into the main body of the post.

Why do you need to analyse the quote? (Note that "analyse" is the BrE spelling of your "analyze".)

 

[Tdol]

Nationalism has unpleasant origins and has always caused problems.

 

[Tdol]

The weird order struck me too.

 

[Rover_KE]

vrundap2002, I'd still like to know why you need to analyse the quote, as ems asked in post #2.

Have you spotted the Thank and Like buttons in the bottom left-hand corner of every post? You can click one of these for every post you find helpful, so you don't have to bother writing thank you letters.

 

[Tdol]

The first part is all metaphorical, but you have to know the meanings of 'iniquity' and 'sin'. It's a rather creative and colorful premise followed by a very dogmatic statement, all opinion, of course. Frankly since conception normally comes before birth, I would have written it in that order.

The writer is credited as being a Norwegian-American economist, so it's possibly not his first language.