“Mass democracy, mass morality and the mass media thrive independently of the individual, who joins them only at the cost of at least a partial perversion of his instincts and insights. He pays for his social ease with what used to be called his soul – his discriminations, his uniqueness, his psychic energy, his self.”
Page 254.
The Savage God (1971)
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Al Alvarez5
English poet, novelist, essayist and critic 1929–2019Related quotes
Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher
Man in the Modern Age (1933)
Context: The masses are our masters; and for every one who looks facts in the face his existence has become dependent on them, so that the thought of them must control his doings, his cares, and his duties.
Even an articulated mass always tends to become unspiritual and inhuman. It is life without existence, superstitions without faith. It may stamp all flat; it is disinclined to tolerate independence and greatness, but prone to constrain people to become as automatic as ants.<!-- p. 43
Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist
The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 60.
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor
RODIN, AUGUSTE. L'Art. Entretiens réunis par Paul Gsell, 1911
Jacques Ellul book Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes
Vintage, p. 4
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1962)
François Furet (1927–1997) French historian
Source: The Passing of an Illusion, The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (1999), p.191
William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist
Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 10