“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

— Noam Chomsky

Source: Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, The Common Good (1998)

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Do you have more details about the quote "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow ve…" by Noam Chomsky?

Noam Chomsky 334

american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

or if noticed, dismissed as “emotional,” “irresponsible,” etc.
Source: After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology, with Noam Chomsky, 1979, p. 30.

“People live in a very ignorant way, they’re so taken by their quiet senses that they never realize the action going on in the universe around them, and this is only because they trust their senses that only show them a very tight spectrum of the occurring events”

Ali Al-Wardi (1913–1995) Iraqi sociologist

“Two signs of learned person are: acceptance of other people's criticism, and being knowledgeable about the angles and dimensions of rhetoric and debate.”

Husayn ibn Ali (626–680) The grandson of Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 252
Regarding Wisdom

“American society, although it has more freedom of expression than most societies in the world, thus sets limits beyond which respectable people are not supposed to think or speak. So far, too much of the debate on Vietnam has observed these limits.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

Howard Zinn on War (2000), Ch. 14: Vietnam: A Matter of Perspective http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Vietnam_Perspective_HZOW.html
Context: Scholars, who pride themselves on speaking their minds, often engage in a form of self-censorship which is called "realism." To be "realistic" in dealing with a problem is to work only among the alternatives which the most powerful in society put forth. It is as if we are all confined to a, b, c, or d in the multiple choice test, when we know there is another possible answer. American society, although it has more freedom of expression than most societies in the world, thus sets limits beyond which respectable people are not supposed to think or speak. So far, too much of the debate on Vietnam has observed these limits.

“But in the real world, few of us holds these extreme views. There is instead a spectrum of opinion.”

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer

"Mediasaurus: The decline of conventional media" http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote02.html - Speech at the National Press Club, Washington D.C. (7 April 1993)
Context: We are all assumed, these days, to reside at one extreme of the opinion spectrum, or another. We are pro-abortion or anti-abortion. We are free traders or protectionist. We are pro-private sector or pro-big government. We are feminists or chauvinists. But in the real world, few of us holds these extreme views. There is instead a spectrum of opinion.