“The Nazis were ‘convinced that evil-doing in our time has a morbid force of attraction,’ Bolshevik assurances inside and outside Russia that they do not recognize ordinary moral standards have become a mainstay of Communist propaganda, and experience has proven time and again that the propaganda value of evil deeds and general contempt for moral standards is independent of mere self-interest, supposedly the most powerful psychological factor in politics.”

— Hannah Arendt, book The Origins of Totalitarianism

Part 3, Ch. 1 § 1.
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

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Jewish-American political theorist 1906–1975

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“If the enemy tortures, it defines their moral evil and all intelligence gleaned from such coercion is self-evidently false propaganda. If we do it, it isn't wrong, and it leads to good intelligence.
Got that? And these people have the gall to describe their ideological opponents as moral relativists.”

Andrew Sullivan (1963) Journalist, writer, blogger

"Bush, McCain, Torture," The Daily Dish (2 July 2008)

“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor 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 to co-operate with evil, and 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.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Frontpage Magazine interview http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19293 (August 31, 2005).

“It is the subtle scheme of political propaganda to describe the Hindu as pro-Fascist. It is a cruel calumny which has been spread in America and other countries. The Hindu Mahasabha stood for Savarkar’s policy of militarization and industrialization. We recognized that Fascism was a supreme menace to what is good and noble in our civilization. Due to Veer Savarkar’s call thousands of young men joined the Army and Navy and Air Force and shed their blood for resisting Nazi tyranny and for real friendship with China and Russia. But as the Hindus had the temerity to ask for National Independence and took the lead in rejecting the Cripps offer, they were maligned and the subtle forces of organized British propaganda were let loose to blackmail the Hindus.”

Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee (1895–1971) Indian politician

(Hindu Politics, p.103) . Quoted from Elst, K. : Was Veer Savarkar a Nazi? , 1999 https://web.archive.org/web/20100706155911/http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/savarkarnazi.html

“The key feature of Communist propaganda has been the depiction of people who are more productive as mere exploiters of others.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

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1980s–1990s, Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays (1987)

“A good American makes propaganda for whatever existence has forced him to become.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

"Cousins," from Him With His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories (1984), p. 263
General sources

“Our opinions agree as to the evil, moral, political, and economical, of the former”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

1820s, Letter to F. Corbin (1820)
Context: I do not mean to discuss the question how far slavery and farming are incompatible. Our opinions agree as to the evil, moral, political, and economical, of the former.

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i. e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i. e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

Hannah Arendt book The Origins of Totalitarianism

Part 3, Ch. 13, § 3. <br class="br">Source: On the subject the ideal subjects for a totalitarian authority. Source: The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951. As quoted by Scroll Staff (December 04, 2017): Ideas in literature: Ten things Hannah Arendt said that are eerily relevant in today’s political times https://web.archive.org/web/20191001213756/https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times. In: Scroll.in. Archived from the original https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times on October 1, 2019.

“The “Lucifer Effect” describes the point in time when an ordinary, normal person first crosses the boundary between good and evil to engage in an evil action. It represents a transformation of human character that is significant in its consequences. Such transformations are more likely to occur in novel settings, in “total situations,” where social situational forces are sufficiently powerful to overwhelm, or set aside temporally, personal attributes of morality, compassion, or sense of justice and fair play.
Evil is the exercise of power to intentionally harm (psychologically), hurt (physically), or destroy (mortally or spiritually) others.”

Philip G. Zimbardo (1933) American social psychologist, author of Stanford Prison Experiment

In "Who was Lucifer and how did he become the Devil?" (2007) http://www.lucifereffect.com/lucifer.htm

“Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Assignment in Eternity

Assignment in Eternity (1953)

“The hijab has nothing to do with moral values.”

Nawal El-Saadawi (1931) Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician and psychiatrist

Statement on Al-Arabiya TV (3 March 2007), as quoted in "The Hijab: Is it Religiously mandated?" by Farzana Hassan and Tarek Fatah at Islamic Research Foundation International, Inc. http://www.irfi.org/articles3/articles_4801_4900/the%20hijab-%20is%20it%20religiously%20mandatedhtml.htm <br class="br">Context: The hijab has nothing to do with moral values. A woman's moral values are reflected in her eyes, in the way she talks, and in the way she walks. They put on a hijab and go dancing, wearing high heels and lipstick. They wear tight jeans that show their bellies.

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