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Living well might feel impossible, and certainly living purely is impossible. The slate has never been clean, and we can't wipe off the surface to start fresh -- there's no "fresh" to start. Endocrine-disrupting soap doesn't offer a purity made simple because there isn't one. All there is, while things perpetually fall apart, is the possibility of acting from where we are. Being against purity means that there is no primordial state we might wish to get back to, no Eden we have desecrated, no pretoxic body we might uncover through enough chia seeds and kombucha. There is not a preracial state we could access, erasing histories of slavery, forced labor on railroads, colonialism, genocide, and their concomitant responsibilities and requirements. There is no food we can eat, clothing we can buy, or energy we can use without deepening our ties to complex webs of suffering.

This book champions the usefulness of thinking about complicity and compromise as a starting point for action.

— Against Purity by Alexis Shotwell (Page 11 - 12)

It is rare for birds to let other creatures get in such close proximity to them. Let us stop here, just for a moment, and reflect on what just happened: without noticing it, we have just slid from the bird to the observer, and have as a result placed ourselves within the space that unites them. It is here, in this space that is both geographic and relational, that the double question can emerge. The essential and pressing duplicity of this question is what transforms all research into ethical, aesthetic, and ethological research: "Who am I, how is my gaze structured in order for you to appear to me such as you are?" together with "Who are you that I see you this way?" Asking the first question without the second leads us to a sterile constructivism, whereas asking the second question without the first leads to a dogmatic realism.

— The Dance of the Arabian Babbler by Vinciane Despret, jeffrey bussolini