Albert Ellis Quote

Intellectual Fascism 3/3To make matters still worse, intellectual fascists frequently demand of themselves, as well as others, perfect competence and universal achievement. If they are excellent mathematicians or dancers, they demand that they be the most accomplished. If they are outstanding scientists or manufacturers, they also must be first-rate painters or writers. If they are fine poets, they not only need to be the finest, but likewise must be great lovers, drawing room wits, and political experts. Naturally, only being human, they fail at many or most of these ventures. And then - O, poetic justice! - they apply to themselves the same excoriations and despisements that they apply to others when they fail to be universal geniuses.However righteous their denials, therefore - and even though readers who by now are not squirming with guilt are probably screaming with indignation, I will determinedly continue - the typical politico-social liberals of our day are fascistic in several significant ways. For they arbitrarily define certain human traits as good or superior; they automatically exclude most others from any possibility of achieving their good standards; they scorn, combat, and in many ways persecute those who do not live up to these capricious goals; and finally, in most instances they more or less fail to live up to their own definitional standards and bring down neurotic self-pity and blame on their own heads.....