<!-- bryant-content-generator:start --> # The Parthenon's builders made a choice about... > The Parthenon's builders made a choice about standards that still confronts societies able to manufacture comfort at scale. Rubio's contrast between building upward and designing downward was an argument about whether collective life permits exceptional work to set new possibilities for everyone else. A society can widen access to its highest capacities without lowering the definition of what those capacities are. The monument remains an example because its makers expected something difficult and then made it visible. **Source:** [[articles/America's Neo-Western Renewal from the Acropolis of Athens to Eternity|America's Neo-Western Renewal from the Acropolis of Athens to Eternity]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “The Parthenon's builders made a choice about standards that still confronts societies able to manufacture comfort at scale. Rubio's contrast between building upward and designing downward was an argument about whether collective life permits exceptional work to set new possibilities for everyone else. A society can widen access to its highest capacities without lowering the definition of what those capacities are. The monument remains an example because its makers expected something difficult and then made it visible.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-parthenons-builders-made-difficult-made-visible ``` <!-- bryant-content-generator:end -->