11 quotes
Not only psychiatry itself but also the values reflected in its statistical definition of “normalcy” serve to condition men to habitual, unthinking, conformist behavior.
Forced to be Free (1971)
Jefferson thought schools would produce free men: we prove him right by putting dropouts in jail.
A Passion for Democracy: American Essays (2000)
Having created the conditions that make markets possible, democracy must do all the things that markets undo or cannot do.
Jihad vs. McWorld (1996)
We know ourselves by understanding our temporality, our embeddedness in time, our connection to roots—even roots from which we have knowingly severed ourselves.
An Aristocracy of Everyone (1992)
The real struggle is in fact not for but against the minds of men. Persuasion as a form of coercion represents an assault on consciousness and intentionality.
Forced to be Free (1971)
I don't divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures, those who make it or those who don't. I divide the world into learners and nonlearners.
Civility is a work of the imagination, for it is through the imagination that we render others sufficiently like ourselves for them to become subjects of tolerance and respect, if not always affection.
A Passion for Democracy: American Essays (2000)
There is a socialization which turns curious children into adult automatons in a social environment of repressive uniformity, and there is a socialization which turns selfish, impulsive children into self-aware and deliberate participants in a larger community.
Liberal democracy has been one of the sturdiest political systems in the history of the modern West. As the dominant modern form of democracy, it has informed and guided several of the most successful and enduring governments the world has known, not least among them that of the United States.
Strong democracy: Participatory politics for a new age (2003)
A form of influence such as advertising sets out intentionally to insulate reactors (mindless consumers) from the more conscious and critical selves (potential abstainers) not by multiplying alternatives (as laisser-faire advocates of the market economy would like to believe) but by provoking dormant and partial desires in a way that circumvents the normal, conscious, rational process.
Forced to be Free (1971)
Truly to be free, my choices must truly be mine—must accord with the “me” with which I associate my core identity. I must make them in keeping with rational life plans. They cannot be triggered by invisible external or covert influences; they must make manifest a will that is unfettered yet rationally informed by life plans.
An Aristocracy of Everyone (1992)