Bruce E. Levine

Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist often at odds with the mainstream of his profession. Levine writes and speaks widely on how society, culture, politics and psychology intersect.

Quotes

• A sane society would be asking questions about the very nature of a society and culture that creates so much trauma for children.... We live in a society that prioritizes profits for large corporations and power for large institutions.
  We live in a society in which, for example, the cause of depression and suicide has been, for decades, falsely attributed by psychiatry and Big Pharma to a chemical imbalance theory long known to be untrue—an untruth that has made billions of dollars for drug companies and increased power for psychiatry through increased use of antidepressants which are known to actually increase suicide... just one of many examples that we do not live in a sane society.
  • The Groundbreaking Public Health Study That Should Change U.S. Society—But Won’t, (19 July 2019)

• Ayn Rand helped make the United States into one of the most uncaring nations in the industrialized world, a neo-Dickensian society where healthcare is only for those who can afford it, and where young people are coerced into huge student-loan debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
• While Harriet Beecher Stowe shamed Americans about the United States' dehumanization of African Americans and slavery, Ayn Rand removed Americans’ guilt for being selfish and uncaring about anyone except themselves. Not only did Rand make it “moral” for the wealthy not to pay their fair share of taxes, she “liberated” millions of other Americans from caring about the suffering of others, even the suffering of their own children.
  • One nation under Galt: How Ayn Rand's toxic philosophy permanently transformed America, Salon, (15 December 2014)

• Some activists lament how few anti-authoritarians there appear to be in the United States. One reason could be that many natural anti-authoritarians are now psychopathologized and medicated before they achieve political consciousness of society’s most oppressive authorities.
  • Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill," Mad In America February 26, 2012

• Polls show that on the major issues of our time — the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, Wall Street bailouts and health insurance — the opinion of We the People has been ignored on a national level for quite some time
  • The Myth of U.S. Democracy and the Reality of U.S. Corporatocracy, Huffington Post (25 May 2011)

• It is a myth that the United States of America was ever a democracy (most of the famous founder elite such as John Adams equated democracy with mob rule and wanted no part of it). The United States of America was actually created as a republic, in which Americans were supposed to have power through representatives who were supposed to actually represent the American people. The truth today, however, is that the United States is neither a democracy nor a republic. Americans are ruled by a corporatocracy: a partnership of “too-big-to-fail” corporations, the extremely wealthy elite, and corporate-collaborator government officials.
  • The Myth of U.S. Democracy and the Reality of U.S. Corporatocracy, Huffington Post (25 May 2011)

• In the U.S. corporatocracy, corporations and the wealthy elite directly and indirectly finance candidates, who are then indebted to them. It’s common for these indebted government officials to appoint to key decision-making roles those friendly to corporations, including executives from these corporations... The United States is not ruled by a single deranged dictator but by an impersonal corporatocracy. Thus, there is no one tyrant that Americans can first hate and then finally overthrow so as to end senseless wars and economic injustices. ... The first step in recovering democracy is the psychological courage to face the humiliation that we Americans have neither a democracy nor a republic but are in fact ruled by a partnership of “too-big-to-fail” corporations, the extremely wealthy elite, and corporate-collaborator government officials.
  • The Myth of U.S. Democracy and the Reality of U.S. Corporatocracy, Huffington Post (25 May 2011)