"I was impressed by the fact that even an advanced schizophrenic process had proved to be reversible or capable of being favorably influenced by a human contact. These were quite unusual notions at the time. I thought that perhaps methods could be devised by which I could help the patient maintain, increase, strengthen the achieved amelioration, even outside of the hospital environment. But of course I had no idea of how to do it. I had nevertheless learned that whatever benefit the patient could receive, had to come from his bonds with at least another human being." Sylvano Arieti (Interpretation of Schizophrenia) "Think neither of the good nor bad, but tell me what is your original … [Read more...]

"It is one of Schmitt’s primary observations that the political is based on secularized theological concepts (Political Theology). This claim could, for example, describe how laws can be seen as spiritual forces to which people comply." Elinor Darzi (Lyotard, Political Theology) "The philosophy of Hitler is simplistic [primaire]. But the primitive powers that burn within it burst open its wretched phraseology under the pressure of an elementary force. They awaken the secret nostalgia within the German soul. Hitlerism is more than a contagion or a madness; it is an awakening of elementary feelings. But from this point on, this frighteningly dangerous phenomenon becomes philosophically … [Read more...]

"As long as the truth of art remains a mystery to us, the untruth of kitsch will continue filling us with unrest.” Ludwig Giesz (Phänomenologie des Kitsches) ”...activity is not to be regarded as an appendix,as merely what comes after thought, but enters into theory at every point and is inseparable from it.” Max Horkheimer (On the Problem of Truth, 1935) "It must not be forgotten that every media professional is bound by wages and other rewards and recompenses to a master, and sometimes to several; and that every one of them knows he is dispensable." Guy Debord (Comments on the Society of the Spectacle) “Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, … [Read more...]

"In spite of First-World nationalism that imagines its subjects as immune to the threat of infectious disease, our post-postmodern, post-human, post-natural society nevertheless retains the structural paradigms of contagion and infection in discourses beyond biomedicine. We are strikingly not beyond contagion." Kari Nixon & Lorenzo Servitje (Endemic) "This, I suspect, will be no radical transformation, no shift into a world 'after nature' or a 'posthuman future.'Perhaps it will not even constitute an “event.” But I think, in all manner of small ways,most of which will soon be routinized and taken for granted, things will not be quite the same again." Nikolas Rose (The Politics of Life … [Read more...]

"Part of the difficulty in recognizing outbreaks of mass sociogenic illness has to do with its diverse nature. A historical review of these events suggests that the features of mass sociogenic illnesses tend to mirror popular social and cultural preoccupations that define distinct eras and reflect unique social beliefs about the nature of the world." Erica Weir (Mass Sociogenic Illness, Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2005) “America is no place for an artist: to be an artist is to be a moral leper, an economic misfit, a social liability. A corn-fed hog enjoys a better life than a creative writer, painter or musician. To be a rabbit is better still.” Henry Miller (The Air … [Read more...]

"Art is a mode of prediction not found in charts and statistics, and it insinuates possibilities of human relations not to be found in rule and precept, admonition and administration." John Dewey "In their { Horkheimer & Adorno's } account of western modernity, enlightenment and progressive rationalization become myth and ideology legitimating social irrationality and injustice, as natural and human relations are increasingly reduced to means through instrumental rationality, fetishized in consumerist culture industries through the often unconscious hegemony of symbolically reproduced values, styles, and practices, and reified and compulsively fixated in a media-driven society." Eric S. … [Read more...]

"Fear lurks in everyone. The one who always asserts to not know fear is mentally damaged or a fool." Max Horkheimer (Psalm 91, Collected Writings vol 7) “Fear, accompanying such an extraordinary state, also plays a role in enchantment. The thirteenth-century writer Albertus Magnus described wonder as “ ‘shocked surprise’ … before the sensible appearance of a great prodigy, so that the heart experinces systole. Thus wonder is somewhat similar to fear….” Jane Bennett (The Enchantment of Modern Life) “Adults live in fear of one kind or another—fear of failure, poverty, isolation, fear of loss of soul in the destruction of the earth. Those fears create a mood of “being lost in the … [Read more...]

"We're all going to die, all of us; what a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities. We are eaten up by nothing." Charles Bukowski (Post Office) "Life and death. Already no physiology is thought scientific if it does not consider death as an essential element of life, life’s negation as being essentially contained in life itself, so that life is always thought of in relation to its necessary result, death, which is always contained in it in germ. The dialectical conception of life is nothing more than this…Living means dying." Freidrich Engels (Dialectic of Nature) "Fear of crime does not correlate with actual … [Read more...]