Notable Quotable 210

Feb 19, 2024

The absence of a transcendent dimension in secular society weakens this social contract in which each supposedly limits his or her freedom in order to live in peace with others. Such universalism of interest is another aspect of modern illusion. There is no such thing as scientifically based human solidarity. I can convince myself that it is in my interest not to rob other people, not to rape and murder, because I can convince myself that the risk is too great. This is the Hobbesian model of solidarity: greed moderated by fear. But social chaos stands in the shadows of such moral anarchy. When society adheres to moral norms for no other reason than prudence, it is extremely weak and its fabric tears at the slightest crisis. In such a society, there is no basis for personal responsibility, charity or compassion. We need instruments of human solidarity that are not based on our own instincts, self-interest or on force. The communist attempt to institutionalize solidarity ended in disaster.

- Leszek Kołakowski

True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

- Helen Keller

The reigning economic system is a vicious circle of isolation. Its technologies are based on isolation, and they contribute to that same isolation. From automobiles to television, the goods that the spectacular system chooses to produce also serve it as weapons for constantly reinforcing the conditions that engender 'lonely crowds'.

Where the real world changes into simple images, the simple images become real beings and effective motivations of hypnotic behavior... All of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.

- Guy Debord

How does one hate a country, or love one? […] What is the sense of giving a boundary […] of giving a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply?

- Ursula K. Le Guin

The thing about freedom is that it defines its own borders.

- Laura Chouette

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These so-called governments are in reality only great bands of robbers and murderers, organized, disciplined, and constantly on the alert.

- Lysander Spooner

So many able writers have shown that the unjust institutions which work so much misery and suffering to the masses have their root in governments, and owe their whole existence to the power derived from government we cannot help but believe that were every law, every title deed, every court, and every police officer or soldier abolished tomorrow with one sweep, we would be better off than now.

- Lucy Parsons

To me, it doesn't matter if your scapegoats are the Jews, the homosexuals, the male sex, the Masons, the Jesuits, the Welfare Parasites, the Power elite, the female sex, the vegetarians, or the Communist Party. To the extent that you need a scapegoat, you simply have not got your brain programmed to work as an efficient problem-solving machine.

- Robert Anton Wilson

There is a thought in your mind right now. The longer you hold on to it, the more you dwell upon it, the more life you give to that thought. Give it enough life, and it will become real. So make sure the thought is indeed a great one.

- Ralph Marston

It comes with great shock, to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance... has not pledged allegiance to you.

- James Baldwin