Richard Mitchell ( 10 of 13 )
Thought control, like birth control, is best undertaken as long as possible before the fact. Many grown-ups will obstinately persist, read more
Thought control, like birth control, is best undertaken as long as possible before the fact. Many grown-ups will obstinately persist, if only now and then, in composing small strings of sentences in their heads and achieving at least momentary logic. This probably cannot be prevented, but we have learned how to minimize the consequences by arranging that such grown-ups will be unable to pursue that logic very far. If they were at home in the technology of writing, there's no telling how much social disorder they would cause by thinking things out at length.Our schools have chosen to cut this danger off as close to the root as possible, thus taking measures to preclude not only the birth of thought but its conception. They give the pill to even the youngest children, but just to be on the safe side, they give it to everybody else, too, especially all would-be schoolteachers.
There is no other way to judge the work of a mind except through its words.
There is no other way to judge the work of a mind except through its words.
Who speaks reason to his fellow man bestows it upon them.
Who speaks reason to his fellow man bestows it upon them.
A line runs from the meditations of the heart to the words of the mouth. The meditations are not clear read more
A line runs from the meditations of the heart to the words of the mouth. The meditations are not clear to us until the mouth utters its words. If what the mouth utters is unclear or foolish or mendacious, it must be that the meditations are the same. But the line runs both ways. The words of the mouth will become the meditations of the heart, and the habit of loose talk loosens the fastenings of our understanding.
If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave. If you cannot examine your thoughts, read more
If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave. If you cannot examine your thoughts, you have no choice but to think them, however silly they may be.
You can shoot the tiger, or stay out of his way, but you cannot pronounce him a vegetarian.
You can shoot the tiger, or stay out of his way, but you cannot pronounce him a vegetarian.
...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.
Literacy is not, as it is considered in our schools, a PORTION of education. It IS education. It is at read more
Literacy is not, as it is considered in our schools, a PORTION of education. It IS education. It is at once the ability AND the inclination of the mind to find knowledge, to pursue understanding, and out of knowledge and understanding, not out of received attitudes and values or emotional responses, however "worthy," to make judgments.
When we find ourselves wondering about the meaning of conditions and events, its always useful to ask, who profits?
When we find ourselves wondering about the meaning of conditions and events, its always useful to ask, who profits?
Rousseau had it backwards. We are NOT born free. We are born in the chains of the random and the read more
Rousseau had it backwards. We are NOT born free. We are born in the chains of the random and the reflexive, and are ignorant and unreasonable by simple nature. We must learn to be free, to organize the random and detect the reflexive, to acquire the knowledge of particulars and the powers of reason. The examined life is impossible if we cannot examine, order, classify, define, distinguish, always in minute particulars.
