“The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action.”

—  Jacques Ellul , book Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes

Vintage, p. 25
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965)

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Jacques Ellul photo
Jacques Ellul 125
French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarch… 1912–1994

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“Without the scientific research of modern psychology and sociology there would be no propaganda, or rather we still would be in the primitive stages of propaganda that existed in the time of Pericles or Augustus.”

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Context: First of all, modern propaganda is based on scientific analyses of psychology and sociology. Step by step, the propagandist builds his techniques on the basis of his knowledge of man, his tendencies, his desires, his needs, his psychic mechanisms, his conditioning — and as much on social psychology as on depth psychology. He shapes his procedures on the basis of our knowledge of groups and their laws of formation and dissolution, of mass influences, and of environmental limitations. Without the scientific research of modern psychology and sociology there would be no propaganda, or rather we still would be in the primitive stages of propaganda that existed in the time of Pericles or Augustus.

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“One of the serious results of propaganda is that it has caused the public to think that education and propaganda are the same thing, and thus to make an ignorant multitude believe it is being educated when it is only being manipulated. Education aims at independence of judgement. Propaganda offers ready-made opinions for the unthinking herd.”

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