Philip Slater

Philip Elliot Slater (May 15, 1927 – June 20, 2013) was an American sociologist and author.

Quotes

• [E]very morning all 200 million of us get out of bed and put a lot of energy into creating and re-creating the social calamities that oppress, infuriate and exhaust us.
  • The Pursuit of Loneliness (1976)[1970], p. 2. Note: content only appears in the 1976 revised and subsequent editions, not in the original.
• Our economy is based on spending billions to persuade people that happiness is buying things, and then insisting that the only way to have a viable economy is to make things for people to buy so they'll have jobs and get enough money to buy things.
  • The Pursuit of Loneliness (1990)[1970], p. 165.
• The troubles we're experiencing didn't arise because someone made the wrong economic prediction, or used the wrong economic indicator or the wrong theory of corporate investment. They arose because we've been using our energies mindlessly for decades; we've put our labor and resources into activities that have brought us nothing back.
  • The Pursuit of Loneliness (1990)[1970], p. 173.
• The idea that everybody wants money is propaganda circulated by wealth addicts to make themselves feel better about their addiction.
  • Wealth Addiction (1980). New York: Dutton. p. 25.
• As a society, we encourage selfishness. We expect people to be interested primarily in their private or family welfare, with little concern for community needs. The care of the sick, old, disturbed, or poor, for example—a task that most societies take for granted—is carried out grudgingly, carelessly, or not at all.
  • The News Tribune. October 5, 1980. p. E10.
• [If] you brainwash people into forgetting that they're part of each other, you can manipulate them...that's how individualism leads to fascism - divide and conquer.
  • As cited by the New York Times. From the documentary film Paradox on 72d Street (1982).
• Conflict will never be eliminated from human affairs. Conflict is simply the active expression of difference, and an essential part of human development. Without conflict change would be impossible. Our goal as a species at this point in our development is to mold a world in which conflict can be contained within a larger embracing understanding—the realization that we share certain goals and aspirations in common, no matter how much we scream at each other about procedures.
  • A Dream Deferred: America's Discontent and the Search for a New Democratic Ideal (1992). Boston: Beacon Press. p. 29.