"Today's banalities apparently gain in profundity if one states that the wisdom of the past, for all its virtues, belongs to the past. The arrogance of those who come later preens itself with the notion that the past is dead and gone. The modern mind can no longer think thought, only can locate it in time and space. The activity of thinking decays to the passivity of classifying."

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Source: Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing. Book by Russell Jacoby, 1975.

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Russell Jacoby

Author, Cultural Critic

Russell Jacoby is a cultural critic known for his insights on freedom, consumerism, and the impact of modern distractions on society.

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Russell Jacoby Author, Cultural Critic

"The radicals...want speech regulated by codes that proscribe certain language. They see free speech as at best a delusion, at worst a threat to the welfare of minorities and women....The most obvious (and cynical) explanation for the switched positions is the switched situations. Protesting students became established professors and administrators. For outsiders, free speech is bread and butter; for insiders, indigestion. To the new academics, unregulated free speech spells trouble."

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