Robert Jay Lifton Quotes

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• The American president has particular power. This makes Trump the most dangerous man in the world. He's equally dangerous because of his finger on the nuclear trigger and because of his mind ensconced in solipsistic reality. The two are a dreadful combination.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Reality, Men, Mind

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  6 Copy quote

• The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Analysis, Phrases, Language

  Robert Jay Lifton (1989). “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "brainwashing" in China”, p.429, UNC Press Books

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• For anyone with the traits - of feeling himself victimized, of seeking to be the strongman who resolves everything, yet sees truth only through his own self and negates all other truth outside of it - is bound to become more malignant when he has power. Power then breeds an intensification of all this because the power can never be absolute power - to some extent it's stymied - but the isolation while in power becomes even more dangerous. Think of it as a vicious circle. The power intensifies these tendencies and the tendencies become more dangerous because of the power.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Thinking, Feelings, Isolation

  Source: www.salon.com

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• In sum, doubling is the psychological means by which one invokes the evil potential of the self. That evil is neither inherent in the self nor foreign to it. To live out the doubling and call forth the evil is a moral choice for which one is responsible, whatever the level of consciousness involved.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Mean, Self, Evil

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• In early psychoanalytic thought, narcissism was - and still, of course, is - self-love. The early psychoanalysts used to talk of libido directed at the self. That now feels a little quaint, that kind of language. But it does include the most fierce and self-displaying form of one's individual self. And in this way, it can be dangerous. When you look at Donald Trump, you can really see someone who's destructive to any form of life enhancement in virtually every area. And if that's what Fromm means by malignant narcissism, then it definitely applies.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Mean, Narcissism, Language

  Source: www.salon.com

  4 Copy quote

• There's an all-enveloping destructiveness in Donald Trump's character and in his psychological tendencies. But I've focused on what professionally I call solipsistic reality. Solipsistic reality means that the only reality he's capable of embracing has to do with his own self and the perception by and protection of his own self. And for a president to be so bound in this isolated solipsistic reality could not be more dangerous for the country and for the world. He's not psychotic, but I think ultimately this solipsistic reality will be the source of his removal from the presidency.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Country, Mean, Character

  Source: www.salon.com

  4 Copy quote

• With the nuclear threat we know that if sufficient weapons are used, human civilization - all of humankind - could be extinguished literally by "nuclear winter." So we have to see ourselves as part of the ultimate human group, just as we have to do with global warming.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Winter, Global Warming, Threat

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  6 Copy quote

• While Donald Trump doesn't have any systematic ideology, he does have a narrative, and in that narrative, America was once a great country, it's been weakened by poor leadership, and only he can make it great again by taking over. And that's an image of himself as a strongman, a dictator. It isn't the clear ideology of being a fascist or some other clear-cut ideological figure. Rather, it's a narrative of himself as being unique and all-powerful. He believes it, though I'm sure he's got doubts about it.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Country, Believe, Unique

  Source: www.salon.com

  4 Copy quote

• The one-sided exploitation of existential guilt is thought reform's trump card, and perhaps its most important source of emotional influence over its participants. Revolving around it are issues most decisive to thought reform's outcome.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Emotional, Issues, Guilt

  Robert Jay Lifton (2012). “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'brainwashing' in China”, p.78, UNC Press Books

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• I never quite envisioned myself a proper doctor under that white coat, but I was interested in the idea of healing and in the psychological dimension rather early on.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Healing, Doctors, Ideas

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• It may sound terrible, but I often say that the military saved me from a conventional life in the United States and I've never really thanked them for it, because I haven't exactly been pro-military in my work.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Military, Sound, United States

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• Trump has a mind that in many ways is always under duress, because he's always seeking to be accepted, loved. He sees himself as constantly victimized by others and by the society, from which he sees himself as fighting back. So there's always an intensity to his destructive behavior that could contribute to his false beliefs.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Fighting, Mind, Belief

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  4 Copy quote

• And I thought about the psychic numbing involved in strategic projections of using hydrogen bombs or nuclear weapons of any kind. And I also thought about ways in which all of us undergo what could be called the numbing of everyday life.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Psychics, Hydrogen Bomb, Everyday

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• The scientists who made the atomic bomb are, in my sense, people with a tragic destiny. You know, there was the US race with Nazi Germany and good evidence that the Germans were more advanced in nuclear physics, and we had to get the bomb first. But then there was the use of that dreadful weapon, or instrument of genocide, and many of the more sensitive scientists turned quickly into anti - nuclear people - and very effective ones.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Destiny, People, Physics

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  4 Copy quote

• There is a movement of more people recognizing global warming as a danger, recognizing the human contribution to global warming, recognizing the necessity for doing something about it. So there's a trend in that direction, and that trend is consistent with what a climate swerve - which is, as we're both saying, a mindset.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  People, Global Warming, Mindset

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  7 Copy quote

• Donald Trump both disbelieves and believes in falsehoods, so that when he did thrive on his longstanding - the claim that Obama was not born in the United States - he's crazy like a fox in manipulating it because it gave him his political entrée onto the national stage. In order to make your falsehoods powerful, you have to believe in them in some extent. And that's why we simplify things if we say that Trump either believes nothing in his falsehoods and is just manipulating us like a fox or he completely believes them.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Powerful, Crazy, Believe

  Source: www.salon.com

  4 Copy quote

• David Frankfurter's valuable, well-written study takes us to the far reaches of demonology. In documenting the harm done by labeling others evil, he poses a challenge to those of us who believe, however regretfully, in the necessity of the concept.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Believe, Evil, Challenges

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• Yes, I've been very preoccupied with the survivor all through my work.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Survivor

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• And I was troubled by the heavy-handed prose of so much psychoanalytic writing, which seemed drowned in its own concepts.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Writing, Heavy, Prose

  Robert Jay Lifton (2011). “Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

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• Donald Trump gives the impression that he would like to govern by decree. He has that impulse in him and he wants to be a savior, so he says, in his famous phrase, "Only I can fix it!" That's a strange and weird statement for anybody to make, but it's central to Trump's sense of self and self-presentation. And I think that has a lot to do with his identification with dictators. No matter how many they kill and no matter what else they do, they have this capacity to rule by decree without any interference by legislators or courts.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Thinking, Giving, Strange

  Source: www.salon.com

  4 Copy quote

• The other thing that happened was my last military assignment - this was in the air force; I had enlisted in order to avoid being drafted as a private, and of course I only practiced medicine or psychiatry in the air force so I was never in any kind of violent combat.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Military, Air, Order

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• I'm a Brooklyn boy. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised there, and spent most of my childhood there.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  New York, Boys, Childhood

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• And I managed to arrange to get some research support and to stay in Hong Kong for another year and a half, interviewing people coming out of China, both Westerners and Chinese. And that was my first real research study on thought reform or so-called brainwashing.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Real, Years, People

  23 Copy quote

• I learned a lot from Vietnam veterans, especially as some of them turned against their own war.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  War, Vietnam, Veteran

  24 Copy quote

• Every adult in the world has some sense that he or she might be obliterated at any time by these weapons that we have created.

  Robert Jay Lifton

  Time, Adults, World

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