Category: Thought

This word ‘fascist’ is one of the great words at the moment that stops everyone from thinking. You have only to say that so-and-so’s a fascist and that’s the end of any reason; you can’t think after that. I wish there could be a ban put on the use of the word. It’s an extraordinary psychological thing that if you say there is a possibility of war, the reaction is to lynch you.

Doris Lessing, in Lesley Hazelton, “Doris Lessing on Feminism, Communism and ‘Space Fiction,’” New York Times (July 25, 1982).

“Policy” is the negation of politics; policy is by definition something concocted by some form of elite, which presumes it knows better than others how their affairs are to be conducted. By participating in policy debates the very best one can achieve is to limit the damage, since the very premise is inimical to the idea of people managing their own affairs.

David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (2004).

What the feminists want of me is something they haven’t examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness. What they would really like me to say is, ‘Ha, sisters, I stand with you side by side in your struggle toward the golden dawn where all those beastly men are no more.’ Do they really want people to make oversimplified statements about men and women? In fact, they do. I’ve come with great regret to this conclusion.

Doris Lessing, in Lesley Hazelton, “Doris Lessing on Feminism, Communism and ‘Space Fiction,’” New York Times (July 25, 1982).

We live in a world of incredible suffering. This brief paradise in the West since the end of the last war, which is about to end, has educated two generations into thinking we live in some sort of Shangri-La. As usual we — that is, the human race — are in for a hard time. But that is our history. When have we not had a hard time?

Doris Lessing, in Lesley Hazelton, “Doris Lessing on Feminism, Communism and ‘Space Fiction,’” New York Times (July 25, 1982).

We have not triumphed over a doctrine when we have shown its chimerical nature.

Gustave Le Bon, Psychologie du Socialisme (1896), translated as The Psychology of Socialism (1899). Passage offered here last week, but this sentence stood out. Worthy of emphasis.

If the existence of bullshit jobs seems to defy the logic of capitalism, one possible reason for their proliferation might be that the existing system isn’t capitalism — or at least, isn’t any sort of capitalism that would be recognizable from the works of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, or, for that matter, Ludwig von Mises or Milton Friedman.

David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018).

It is the common error of Socialists to overlook the natural indolence of mankind; their tendency to be passive, to be the slaves of habit, to persist indefinitely in a course once chosen. Let them once attain any state of existence which they consider tolerable, and the danger to be apprehended is that they will thenceforth stagnate; will not exert themselves to improve, and by letting their faculties rust, will lose even the energy required to preserve them from deterioration. Competition may not be the best conceivable stimulus, but it is at present a necessary one, and no one can foresee the time when it will not be indispensable to progress.

John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy (1848; 1871), Volume II, Book IV, Chapter 7.

Socialism is the theory that the desire of one man to get something he hasn’t got is more pleasing to a just God than the desire of some other man to keep what he has got.

H.L. Mencken, A Little Book in C Major (1916) p. 51.

It may fairly be claimed that humanity has, within the past hundred years, found a way of carrying a theatre in its pocket; and so long as humanity remains what it is, it will delight in taking out its pocket-stage and watching the antics of the actors, who are so like itself and yet so much more interesting. Perhaps that is, after all, the best answer to the question, “What is a novel?” It is, or ought to be, a pocket-stage. Scenery, light, shade, the actors themselves, are made of words, and nothing but words, more or less cleverly put together. A play is good in proportion as it represents the more dramatic, passionate, romantic, or humorous sides of real life. A novel is excellent according to the degree in which it produces the illusions of a good play — but it must not be forgotten that the play is the thing, and that illusion is eminently necessary to success.

Francis Marion Crawford, The Novel: What It Is (1882), Chapter VIII.

There are certain types of people who are political out of a kind of religious reason. . . . I think it’s fairly common among socialists: They are, in fact, God-seekers, looking for the kingdom of God on earth. A lot of religious reformers have been like that, too. It’s the same psychological set, trying to abolish the present in favor of some better future — always taking it for granted that there is a better future. If you don’t believe in heaven, then you believe in socialism. When I was in my real Communist phase, I and the people around me really believed — but, of course, this makes us certifiable — that something like ten years after World War II, the world would be Communist and perfect.

Doris Lessing, novelist, as quoted in “Doris Lessing on Feminism, Communism and Space Fiction,” Lesley Hazelton, New York Times Book Review (July 25, 1982).