5 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)
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)
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)
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)