Everett Dean Martin: Mind

“It must be borne in mind that everything the propagandist does or says is for effect—most commonly the effect on fools. The public wants not truth but a show?”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: Are We Victims of Propaganda, Our Invisible Masters: A Debate with Edward Bernays (1929), p. 144

Truth , Fools

“Standardization develops a kind of mass mind, which in mature years renders men very susceptible to crowd appeal.”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: The Meaning of a Liberal Education (1926), p. 74

Men

“There is a quality of the educated mind which may best be described as a kind of sincerity, and conversely the outstanding trait of ignorance is that of clever insincerity.”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: The Meaning of a Liberal Education (1926), p. 43

Education , Sincerity

“I have characterized education as a victory won over one's wish-fancies and childish egoism, as the lifting of the problems of life to higher and more significant dilemmas, as the attainment of mastery. A humanistic liberalism seeks freedom as broad-mindedness; it strives for a highly civilized, urbane and sophisticated state of mind in which insight is deepened and interest is widened.”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: The Meaning of a Liberal Education (1926), p. 133

Life , Education , Problem , Freedom

“Most minds are loaded down with the seriousness of their convictions.”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: The Meaning of a Liberal Education (1926), p. 89

“The phenomena which we call the crowd-mind, instead of being the outgrowth of the directly social, are social only in the sense that all mental life has a social significance; they are rather the result of forces hidden in the personal and unconscious psyche of the members of the crowd, forces which are merely released by social gatherings of a certain sort.”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: The Behavior of Crowds (1920), p. 7

Life , Sense , Personality

“The attainment of spirit today requires the very most uncompromisingly critical analysis and revaluation of ideals and enthusiasms, ancient and modern, of which the awakening modern mind is capable.”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: Civilizing Ourselves: Intellectual Maturity in the Modern World (1932), p. xi, Foreword

“Moral training which does not encourage critical examination of popular ideas of what is right and good, does not tend to make men better, but only of one mind.”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: The Meaning of a Liberal Education (1926), p. 183

Men , Idea , Training

“It is in the localities where there is least artistic appreciation or intellectual curiosity or cosmopolitan spirit, the places where people have nothing with which to occupy their minds, that we find strongholds of "morality." Where education prevails, people learn to behave themselves as a matter of wisdom and good taste. Those who are sufficiently practiced in the art of living to be able to observe the common decencies without always "watching their step," may sometimes look up from the ground and take a broader view.”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: The Meaning of a Liberal Education (1926), p. 181

Wisdom , People , Education , Art

“Probably the greatest difference among men is this difference in habits of thought. There are some minds which behave merely like the mechanic who having learned his trade in a certain way never can function in any other.”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: Psychology: What it has to Teach You about Yourself and Your World (1924), p. 83

Men , Way , Learning

“The educator aims at a slow process of development; the propagandist, at quick results. The educator tries to tell people how to think; the propagandist, what to think. The educator strives to develop individual responsibility; the propagandist, mass effects. The educator wants thinking; the propagandist, action. The educator fails unless he achieves an open mind; the propagandist, unless he achieves a closed mind.”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: Are We Victims of Propaganda, Our Invisible Masters: A Debate with Edward Bernays (1929), p. 145

People , Education , Thinking

“In just the measure that education aims to develop the individual with independence of judgment rather than to indoctrinate him with tradition and custom and official dogma, to that degree it separates him from the mass and is successful insofar as it emancipates his mind from the tyranny of herd opinion.”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: The Conflict of the Individual and the Mass in the Modern World (1932), p. 17

Education , Success

“I use the term "liberal" not in the political sense, as if it meant half measures, but in its original sense meaning by a liberal education the kind of education which sets the mind free from the servitude of the crowd and from vulgar self-interests.”

Everett Dean Martin

Preface p. viii
The Meaning of a Liberal Education (1926)

Education , Sense

“Psycho-pathologists very often have to deal with people whose thinking is thus “compulsive.” And when analysis is possible, it is usually found that such persistent ideas are associated with some unconscious impulse. It is characteristic of all compulsive thinking that it is not the outgrowth of conscious reasoning and cannot be modified by evidence. Persons whose thinking is compulsive often seek to “rationalize” it—that is, they resort to ingenious devices to render it plausible or to explain away that which would contradict it. This sort of thinking, as I have tried to show, is a common characteristic of the crowd mind. The thinking of the crowd is dogmatic as a result of causes which are similar to those which render compulsive that of certain neurotics. And dogma is a common element in religion.”

Everett Dean Martin

Source: The Mystery of Religion (1924), pp. 52-53

People , Religion , Idea , Thinking