...everything is too important ever to be entrusted to professional experts, because every organization of such professionals and every established social organization becomes a vested-interest institution more concerned with its efforts to maintain itself or advance its own interests than to achieve the purpose that society expects it to achieve.
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The sort of dependence that results from exchange, i.e., from commercial transactions, is a reciprocal dependence. We cannot be dependent read more
The sort of dependence that results from exchange, i.e., from commercial transactions, is a reciprocal dependence. We cannot be dependent upon a foreigner without his being dependent on us. Now, this is what constitutes the very essence of society. To sever natural interrelations is not to make oneself independent, but to isolate oneself completely.
It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone- that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows read more
It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone- that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous...The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.
Society is a madhouse whose wardens are the officials and the police.
Society is a madhouse whose wardens are the officials and the police.
A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an "intellectual"- find out how he feels about astrology.
A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an "intellectual"- find out how he feels about astrology.
But the development of human society does not go straight forward; and the epic process will therefore be a recurring read more
But the development of human society does not go straight forward; and the epic process will therefore be a recurring process, the series a recurring series - though not in exact repetition .
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because read more
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die out, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Do not be in a hurry to tie what you cannot untie.
Do not be in a hurry to tie what you cannot untie.
We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something read more
We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on.
Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
