SZASZ

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT INTELLECTUALS TO HAVE EVER LIVED.

Thomas Szasz (1920-2012)

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT INTELLECTUALS TO HAVE EVER LIVED.

One reason is that his ideas have the potential to avoid a great deal of unnecessary suffering.

Some Szasz Quotes

“Psychiatrists look for twisted molecules and defective genes as the causes of schizophrenia, because schizophrenia is the name of a disease. If Christianity or Communism were called diseases, would they then look for the chemical and genetic “causes” of these “conditions”?” 

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“The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy and, in our age, monomedicine. The belief that there is only one right way to live, only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, and sanity. ”

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“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all."

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“Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence. ” 

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“In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children.  The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults. ” 

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“Parents teach children discipline for two different, indeed diametrically opposed, reasons: to render  the child submissive to them and to make him independent of them. Only a self-disciplined person can be obedient; and only such a person can be autonomous.” 

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“Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic. ” 

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“Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.” 

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“Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions.” 

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“Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.” 

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“Classifying thoughts, feelings and behaviors as diseases is a logical and semantic error, like classifying whale as fish.” 

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“It taught me, at an early age, that being wrong can be dangerous, but being right, when society regards the majority’s falsehood as truth, could be fatal.”