Bruce E. Levine

Bruce E. Levine is an American clinical psychologist, often at odds with the mainstream of his profession (see critical psychology), in private practice in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been in practice for more than three decades. Levine writes and speaks widely on how society, culture, politics and psychology intersect (see Levine bio).

Levine's most recent book is Resisting Illegitimate Authority: A Thinking Person’s Guide to Being an Anti- Authoritarian—Strategies, Tools, and Models (AK Press, 2018). Levine describes how the capacity to comply with abusive authority is humanity’s “fatal flaw,” but fortunately there are anti-authoritarians—people comfortable questioning the legitimacy of authority and resisting its illegitimate forms. However, as Resisting Illegitimate Authority reveals, these rebels are regularly scorned, shunned, financially punished, psychopathologized, criminalized, and even assassinated. Profiling a diverse group of US anti-authoritarians—from Thomas Paine to Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Lenny Bruce, and Noam Chomsky—in order to glean useful lessons from their lives, Resisting Illegitimate Authority provides political, spiritual, philosophical, and psychological tools to help those suffering violence and vilification in a society whose most ardent cheerleaders for “freedom” are often its most obedient and docile citizens. Discussing anti-authoritarian approaches to depression, relationships, and parenting, Levine makes it clear that far from being a disease, disobedience may be our last hope.