Stanley Cohen > Quotes

“Denial may be neither a matter of telling the truth nor intentionally telling a lie. There seem to be states of mind, or even whole cultures, in which we know and don't know at the same time.”
― Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering

“By contrast, the late-modern and post-modern self has in essence no essence. To this fragmented, fluid and compartmentalized self, denial, far from being an aberration, is only to be expected. This, however, is not just a change in world-views. Freud himself was quite clear that the unitary self of even the healthiest, ‘integrated’ person was permanently under siege. The self could never be fully socialized; denial and self-deception are part of being human.”
― Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering

“Callin something a 'moral panic' does not imply that this something does not exist or happened at all and that reaction is based on fantasy, hysteria, delusion and illusion or being duped by the powerful.”
― Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics

“Whole societies are based on forms of cruelty, discrimination, repression or exclusion which are “known” about but never openly acknowledged… Indeed, distortions and self-delusions are most often synchronized… Whole societies have mentioned and unmentionable rules about what should not be openly talked about. You are subject to a rule about obeying these rules, but bound also by a meta-rule which dictates that you deny your knowledge of the original rule.”
― Stanley Cohen