“Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.”

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition." by Christopher Hitchens?

Christopher Hitchens305

British American author and journalist 1949–2011

Related quotes

“Superstitions, and especially the early cultivation of religion, with its “fear of the Lord” and of unknown mysterious agencies, are especially potent in the development of the instinct of fear. Even the early cultivation of morality and conscientiousness, with their fears of right and wrong, often causes psychoneurotic states in later life. Religious, social, and moral taboos and superstitions, associated with apprehension of threatening impending evil, based on the fear instinct, form the germs of psychopathic affections.”

Boris Sidis (1867–1923) American psychiatrist

Source: The Causation and Treatment of Psychopathic Diseases (1916), p. 37

“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.”

Ayn Rand book The Virtue of Selfishness

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
Context: Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage—the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.

“Love is deceitful and sublime. In its truest form, it brings out the best in all beings. At its worse, It's a tool used to manipulate and ruin any one who is stupid enough to hold it. Don't be stupid.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

“I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Interview (January 1965?)
By any means necessary: speeches, interviews, and a letter (1970)
Context: I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.