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June 8, 2016
This quote from Theodore Dalrymple is popping up more frequently, as it deserves:
"In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."Woodpile Report
Posted by gerardvanderleun at June 8, 2016 8:43 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Dalrymple only explicates part of the debacle. Another gob of degradation occurs when the lies, repeated often enough, are believed by listeners who have inadequate contra-lies in context, that is, inadequate pertinent factual information. These dupes believe the lies because they never knew the opposing truth.
Posted by: Stug Guts at June 8, 2016 4:01 PM
After a time period, you get Venezuela.
Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck at June 9, 2016 12:12 PM
Before Dalrymple, Eric Hoffer made a similar observation concerning "intellectuals" in an interview with Eric Sevareid:
"First of all, I ought to tell you that I have no grievance against intellectuals. All that I know about them is what I read in history books and what I've observed in our time. I'm convinced that the intellectuals as a type, as a group, are more corrupted by power than any other human type. It's disconcerting to realize that businessmen, generals, soldiers, men of action are less corrupted by power than intellectuals.
"In my new book I elaborate on this and I offer an explanation why. You take a conventional man of action, and he's satisfied if you obey, eh? But not the intellectual. He doesn't want you just to obey. He wants you to get down on your knees and praise the one who makes you love what you hate and hate what you love. In other words, whenever the intellectuals are in power, there's soul-raping going on." (My emphasis.)
Sevareid noted that this was true in (then) Soviet Russia, but here? Hoffer responded:
"In this country the intellectuals aren't in power. Mass movement hasn't a chance for the simple reason that they aren't started by the masses. They're started by intellectuals.
"In America the intellectual has neither status, nor prestige, nor influence. We, the common people, are not impressed by intellectuals. We have a disdain for pencil-pushers. We actually define efficiency by the small number of pencil-pushers. If you asked me what I consider an efficient society I'd say the ratio between the office personnel and the producing personnel.
"The smaller the amount of supervision the better, the healthier, the more vigorous a society. The highest supervisory personnel is where the intellectuals are in power - in Communist countries. There half the population is supervising the other half. The intellectuals have a tremendous contempt for the masses. Intellectuals can't operate unless they're convinced that the masses are lazy, incompetent, dishonest; that you have to breathe down their necks, and you have to watch them all the time. We in America are sitting pretty because the masses perform only if we leave them alone. That's where we are at our best."
That was about 1969. A lot has changed in those intervening 45+ years, and most of it has been ever more regulation and supervision by ever-growing numbers of pencil-pushers. (Tried to buy lemonaid at a roadside stand recently?)
Posted by: Kevin Baker at June 11, 2016 10:11 AM