In case you missed the Dateline interview with Richard Dawkins.

And we rather like this (slightly remodeled):

“Fear and Folly: Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and the Existential Identity Thief” by Thomas S. Szasz, M.D.

One of the basic functions of living organisms is avoiding danger. In human beings, the emotion of fear serves that function. Because feeling fear is unpleasant, we try to escape it by seeking protection from danger, typically by looking to a Protector to protect us. Tragically, this longing — be it for a deity, demagogue, dictator, or doctor — is, itself, a source of danger.

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” (William Pitt, British Prime Minister, 1783-1801 and 1804-1806.)

Fear of the insane and the psychiatrist’s role as society’s protector from the risk he allegedly poses is what has made the mere ascription of the label “insane” a justification for depriving the bearer of liberty. Although the idea of “the dangerous madman” is a bugaboo or a tautology (because we redefine bad as mad, deviant as deranged), it has captivated the contemporary mind — secular and religious alike — and has entrapped some of the most admired modern intellectuals.

In A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell, the great atheist skeptic, tried to refute David Hume’s sceptical empiricism and concluded that he was unequal to the task:

“It is therefore important to discover whether there is any answer to Hume within the framework of a philosophy that is wholly or mainly empirical. If not, there is no intellectual difference between sanity and insanity. The lunatic who believes that he is a poached egg is to be condemned solely on the ground that he is in a minority, or rather — since we must not assume democracy — on the ground that the government does not agree with him. This is a desperate point of view, and it must be hoped that there is some way of escaping from it”.

Russell’s “desperation” was inconsistent with his scepticism, expressed earlier in his Sceptical Essays, where he had stated:

“I wish to propose for the reader’s favourable consideration a doctrine … that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true”.

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