Source: The Ethics of Freedom (1973 - 1974), p. 397
Context: The system absorbs those who think they can utilize it. Nor can there be any question of finding a modus vivendi or achieving attenuations. It has been demonstrated how the liberals state becomes an authoritarian state. The course is set and no accommodation will be either lasting or sufficient.
In face of this absolute power, only an absolutely negative position is viable. What we have in mind is the attitude that conscientous objectors take on a specific point, and not without good reason. In the present set-up the anarchist attitude of a total refusal of validity or legitimacy to any authority of any kind seems to me to be the only valid and viable one. The point is not to enforce a particular view of society but to establish a counterbalance, a protest, a sign of cleavage. In face of an absolute power only a total confrontation has any meaning.
“Anybody may propose to establish coercive Eugenics; or enforce psychoanalysis — that is, enforce confession without absolution.”
"Fads and Public Opinion"
What I Saw in America (1922)
Context: Now there is any amount of this nonsense cropping up among American cranks. Anybody may propose to establish coercive Eugenics; or enforce psychoanalysis — that is, enforce confession without absolution.
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G. K. Chesterton 229
English mystery novelist and Christian apologist 1874–1936Related quotes
“Rights may be universal, but their enforcement must be local.”
Two Just Wars: 1776 and 1861 (1994) http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard20.html.
Source: Principles of Scientific Management, 1911, p. 64.
Source: The Visible Hand (1977), p. 74; Cited in: Michael H. Best (1990) The New Competition: Institutions of Industrial Restructuring. p. 36.
Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534, 540-41 (1961).
Judicial opinions
Focus Fourteen
2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero
Source: Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (1963), p. 31.
2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)