Skinner … decrees … the abolition of freedom by way of beha… - Russell Jacoby

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Skinner … decrees … the abolition of freedom by way of behavior modification and a souped-up environment, in the name of a new “scientific” value—survival. The irony is that freedom and individuality have only existed in their mangled bourgeois form; to propose junking them in the name of survival is to propose the very society we now have, one that subsists exactly by an ethos of survival, paying lip service to freedom and the individual while rewarding the victors and punishing the victims. Freedom and individuality have never been more than adornments for an ugly environment of survival of the fittest.

Russell Jacoby

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About Russell Jacoby

Russell Jacoby (born April 23, 1945) is a professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) an author, and critic of academic culture. His fields of interest are Twentieth Century European and American intellectual and cultural history specifically the history of intellectuals and education.

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Herbert Marcuse Theodor W. Adorno Richard M. Weaver Peter Sloterdijk Max Horkheimer

Additional quotes by Russell Jacoby

What must be acknowledged, for example the prevalence of anxiety, is grafted onto man’s essence as if it grew there. Such is the tried and tested method of the apologist: what is social in origin is presented as natural.

Instead of ideologically synchronizing contradictions, or assigning them to separate halls of the academy, critical theory seeks to articulate them.

The left once dismissed the market as exploitative; it now honors the market as rational and humane. The left once disdained mass culture as exploitative; now it celebrates it as rebellious. The left once honored independent intellectuals as courageous; now it sneers at them as elitist.

Skinner … decrees … the abolition of freedom by way of behavior modification and a souped-up environment, in the name of a new “scientific” value—sur… - Russell Jacoby

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