Robert Jeens

“Despotic tendencies in human beings are so deeply ingrained that they cannot simply be renounced. We did not just suddenly go from nasty to nice. Reverse dominance hierarchy is a form of dominance; egalitarianism is not simply the absence of despotism; it is the active and continuous elimination of potential despotism.”
― Robert N. Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age

“The concept of 'anti-racism' is an illiberal notion cloaked in liberal terms. lt sounds bold, virtuous and active. No wonder so many well-intentioned people are declaring themselves to be 'anti-racist' with little understanding of its divisive implications. The worst possible way to tackle prejudice is to reanimate the racial divisions of yesteryear through a heightened emphasis on group identity. The wordplay of the anti-racist movement is sufficiently slippery to make rebuttals seem counter-intuitive. Anti-racism proponents have it backward. In order to oppose racism, one must be opposed to anti-racism.”
― Andrew Doyle, The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

“What's the point of having countless books and libraries, whose titles could hardly be read in a lifetime. The learner is not taught, but burdened by the sheer volume, and it's better to plant the seeds of a few authors than to be scattered about by many.”
― Seneca, Peace of Mind: De Tranquillitate Animi

“Girls in virtual networks are subjected to hundreds of times more social comparison than girls had experienced for all of human evolution. They are exposed to more cruelty and bullying because social media platforms incentivize and facilitate relational aggression. Their openness and willingness to share emotions with other girls espouses them to depression and other disorders. The twisted incentive structures of social media reward the most extreme presentations of symptoms.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness