PAUL FEYERABEND: »It is conceited to assume that one has solutions for people whose lives one does not share and whose problems one does not know. It is foolish to assume that such an exercise in distant humanitarianism will have effects pleasing to the people concerned. From the very beginning of Western Rationalism intellectuals have regarded themselves as teachers, the world as a school and 'people' as obedient pupils. In Plato this is very clear. The same phenomenon occurs among Christians, Rationalists, Fascists, Marxists. Marxists no longer try to learn from those they want to liberate; they attack each other about interpretations, viewpoints, evidence and take it for granted that the resulting intellectual hash will make fine food for the natives (Bakunin was aware of the doctrinarian tendencies of contemporary Marxism and he intended to return all power - power over ideas included - to the people immediately concerned).«
Fra AGAINST METHOD, 1975
PAUL FEYERABEND: »I would say, for most of the misery in our world, wars, destruction of minds and bodies, endless butcheries are caused not by evil individuals but by people who have objectivised their personal wishes and inclinations and thus have made them inhuman.«
Fra FAREWELL TO REASON, 1987