Susan Sontag’s line begins with a simple but demanding premise: insight isn’t complete until it moves outward. A truth held privately can soothe or trouble a conscience, yet it remains inert in the world. Once that insight becomes a public act—spoken, written, organized, protested, or otherwise embodied—it gains weight and consequence.
This shift matters because it converts inner clarity into something others can see and respond to. In that conversion, the individual stops merely “having an opinion” and starts taking responsibility for it, turning thought into a visible commitment that invites scrutiny, solidarity, and sometimes conflict. [...]
