11 quotes
It has persuaded us that others are the cause of our failures, and that others should be responsible for our happiness and well-being.
Calculated Chaos: Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival (1985)
The efforts of one organism to live at the expense of another is, when confined to members of the same species, a form of cannibalism.
Boundaries of Order: Private Property of a Social System (2009)
The hubris that attends all political programs of central planning is fueled by an ignorance of the forces of chaos.
Wizards of Ozymandias: Reflections on the Decline and Fall (2012)
One cannot be devoutly religious, or patriotic, or moral, without differentiating oneself from the ungodly, the disloyal, or the immoral. To be for one’s own group, or nation, or race requires that one be against strangers.
Calculated Chaos: Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival (1985)
For our world to be predictable and controllable, it must be mechanistic and linear in nature. But, the illusions of the behaviorists to the contrary notwithstanding, there is nothing less mechanistic and linear in nature than the human mind, whose intricacies and capacities have yet to be matched by even the most sophisticated computers.
Boundaries of Order: Private Property of a Social System (2009)
We offset the pursuit of our well-being with notions of altruism, and temper our happiness with feelings of guilt. In the vernacular of pop psychology, we speak of being ‘self-alienated’ people who have learned to reject our very selves. Whatever other advantages flow to us from our institutionalized world, the personal disadvantages carry a prohibitive price tag.
Calculated Chaos: Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival (1985)
It is this institutional group-think that now finds itself threatened by new technologies that do not lend themselves to centralized controls. The Internet and other unstructured tools will continue to destabilize the herds that the institutional order has worked so feverishly to keep confined to their assigned pastures.
Wizards of Ozymandias: Reflections on the Decline and Fall (2012)
Almost all of us have been raised in the belief that political institutions are necessary to provide order and harmony in society. In fact, we have been taught that the political State is synonymous with society itself; that the political State energizes and organizes society, creates and protects human rights, and make economic and social life possible.
Calculated Chaos: Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival (1985)
Every institution is a racket. Whether we are considering political, religious, economic, ideological, or educational institutions, each is a formal, elaborate system designed for one purpose: to control people. Each seeks to persuade or compel individual to divert their energies from the pursuit of private, personal objectives, and to dedicate themselves to organizational purposes.
Calculated Chaos: Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival (1985)
Suppose three muggers confront you on the street and say, 'We want your money. But don’t’ worry—we’re going to let you vote on whether or not you should give it to us.' If this group votes three-to-one in favor of taking your money, does this legitimize its actions?
Because we fear the responsibility for our actions, we have allowed ourselves to develop the mentality of slaves. Contrary to the stirring sentiments of the Declaration of Independence, we now pledge ‘our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor’ not to one another for our mutual protection, but to the state, whose actions continue to exploit, despoil, and destroy us.