...far from failing in its intended task, our educational system is in fact succeeding magnificently, because its aim is to read more

...far from failing in its intended task, our educational system is in fact succeeding magnificently, because its aim is to keep the American people thoughtless enough to go on supporting the system.

For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and
aversation towards society in any man, hath read more

For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and
aversation towards society in any man, hath somewhat of the
savage beast.

Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding

Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding

We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which read more

We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself. For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.

Cultures contain many cues and inducements to dissuade the individual from approaching ultimate limits, in much the same way that read more

Cultures contain many cues and inducements to dissuade the individual from approaching ultimate limits, in much the same way that a special warning strip of land around the edge of a baseball field lets a player know that he is about to run into a concrete wall when he is preoccupied with catching the ball. The wider that strip of land and the more sensitive the player is to the changing composition of the ground under his feet as he pursues the ball, the more effective the warning. Romanticizing or lionizing as "individualistic" those people who disregard social cues and inducements increases the danger of head-on collisions with inherent social limits. Decrying various forms of social disapproval is in effect narrowing the warning strip.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Scientists often have a naive faith that if only they could discover enough facts about a problem, these facts would read more

Scientists often have a naive faith that if only they could discover enough facts about a problem, these facts would somehow arrange themselves in a compelling and true solution.

The smashing of idols is in itself such a preoccupation that it is almost impossible for the iconoclast to look read more

The smashing of idols is in itself such a preoccupation that it is almost impossible for the iconoclast to look clearly into a future when there will not be many idols left to smash.

The biggest mischief in the past century has been perpetrated by Rousseau with his doctrine of the goodness of human read more

The biggest mischief in the past century has been perpetrated by Rousseau with his doctrine of the goodness of human nature. The mob and the intellectuals derived from it the vision of a Golden Age which would arrive without fail once the noble human race could act according to its whims.