“In the name of a new theory past theory is declared honorable but feeble; one can lay aside Freud and Marx—or appreciate their limitations—and pick up the latest at the drive-in window of thought.”

—  Russell Jacoby

Source: Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing (1975), p. 3

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In the name of a new theory past theory is declared honorable but feeble; one can lay aside Freud and Marx—or appreciat…" by Russell Jacoby?
Russell Jacoby photo
Russell Jacoby50
American historian 1945

Related quotes

Erich Fromm photo

“The two most far-reaching critical theories at the beginning of the latest phase of industrial society were those of Marx and Freud. Marx showed the moving powers and the conflicts in the social-historical process. Freud aimed at the critical uncovering of the inner conflicts. Both worked for the liberation of man, even though Marx’s concept was more comprehensive and less time-bound than Freud’s.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

"The Art of Being" Pt. 3 (1989)

Camille Paglia photo

“American feminism’s nose dive began when Kate Millet, that imploding beanbag of poisonous self-pity, declared Freud a sexist. Trying to build a sex theory without studying Freud, women have made nothing but mud pies.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf, p. 243

“Hayek had high regard for Marx in technical economic theory and considered him a predecessor in his business cycle theory. […] It was not in technical economic theory that the classical Austrians disagreed with Marx. So towering a figure in history is Marx that discussion of his thought in summary form is always difficult, for there is so much that he said and that others have said about him. At the same time, so tendentious, ill-spirited, and just plain wrong a thinker was Marx that it is surprising that he may have had some of the influence attributed to him. Hayek’s opposition to Marx was in the realm of practical political emanations from Marx’s thought. Here he considered Marx’s influence to have been wholly pernicious.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

Ernest Mandel photo

“For Marx, ‘pure’ economic theory, that is economic theory which abstracts from a specific social structure, is impossible.”

Ernest Mandel (1923–1995) Belgian economist and Marxist philosopher

Introduction to Capital. Introduction to volume 1 (1976)

Andrew Sega photo

“Once you have a basic grasp of the theories underlying music, you can pretty much pick up any instrument you want.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Static Line interview, 1998

“To Marx the claim of the theory of ideology is that all doctrine is a derivative of social circumstance.”

Bernard Crick (1929–2008) British political theorist and democratic socialist

Source: In Defence Of Politics (Second Edition) – 1981, Chapter 2, A Defence Of Politics Against Ideology, p. 38.

“First let me persuade you of my metaphysics and epistemology, then my theory of science, then my ethics and social theory, and then having done all that, I will convince you of my political theory. Over the past two decades, I have become convinced that this is a mug’s game… The reason Plato, Hobbes, Marx, Mill, and Rawls (many others could be named) garner widespread attention as political theorists has much more to do with their destinations than with their starting points.”

Ian Shapiro (1956) American political theorist

Shapiro, Ian. 2011. The Real World of Democratic Theory. Princeton University Press. p. 254; As cited in: Michael A. Fotos. Vincent Ostrom’s Revolutionary Science of Association http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/colloquia/materials/papers/Fotos_VO's%20RevolutionaryScienceOfAssociation_15Mar2013.pdf, Lecturer in Political Science, Ethics, Politics, and Economics Yale University, New Haven CT : About Vincent Ostrom.

Max Born photo

“The continuity of our science has not been affected by all these turbulent happenings, as the older theories have always been included as limiting cases in the new ones.”

Max Born (1882–1970) physicist

As quoted in Beyond Positivism and Relativism : Theory, Method, and Evidence (1996) by Larry Laudan, p. 259

“The physiocrats started a train of thought which was a powerful stimulus to the development of a labour theory of value and surplus value. They did not, however develop such a theory of value themselves. What attention they gave to the problem of exchange-value and price produced results of an altogether different character. Thus while one of their contributions finds its continuation in Smith, Ricardo, and Marx, the other leads to the post-classical supply and demand and utility theories of value.”

Eric Roll, Baron Roll of Ipsden (1907–2005) British economist

Source: A History of Economic Thought (1939), Chapter III, The Founders Of Political Economy, p. 135

“If every man lays down his arms and refuses to pick them up, the first man to pick up can do whatever he wants.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

Violence is Golden
A Sky Without Eagles (2014)

Related topics