“Where the state lacks means of coercion, it is important to control what people think.”
“Though Control in the USA: The Case of the Middle East,” Index on Censorship, July/August 1986, quoted in John H. George, Be Reasonable: Selected Quotations for Inquiring Minds, Prometheus Books, 1994 p. 64
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s
Context: From a comparative perspective, the United States is unusual if not unique in the lack of restraints on freedom of expression. It is also unusual in the range and effectiveness of methods employed to restrain freedom of thought... Where the voice of the people is heard, elite groups must insure their voice says the right things… The less the state is able to employ violence in the defense of the interest of the elite groups that effectively dominate it, the more it becomes necessary to devise techniques of ‘manufacture of consent’… Where obedience is guaranteed by violence, rulers may tend towards a ‘behaviourist’ conception; it is enough that people obey; what they think does not matter too much. Where the state lacks means of coercion, it is important to control what people think.
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Noam Chomsky334
american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928Related quotes
Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President
Interview by FBI Senior Special Agent George L. Piro (7 February 2004); National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 279 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB279/index.htm. <br class="br">Attributed
Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies
2010s, Interview with Joshua Stanton (August 2017)
“It isn't what people think that's important, but the reason they think what they think.”
Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright
As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 468; also in The Quantum Dice (1993) by Leonid Ivanovich Ponomarev, p. 50
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician
Speech to the Zurich Economic Society “The New Renaissance” (14 March 1977) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103336 <br class="br">Leader of the Opposition <br class="br">Context: In our philosophy the purpose of the life of the individual is not to be the servant of the State and its objectives, but to make the best of his talents and qualities. The sense of being self-reliant, of playing a role within the family, of owning one's own property, of paying one's way, are all part of the spiritual ballast which maintains responsible citizenship, and provides the solid foundation from which people look around to see what more they might do, for others and for themselves. That is what we mean by a moral society; not a society where the State is responsible for everything, and no-one is responsible for the State.
Robert A. Heinlein book To Sail Beyond the Sunset
Source: To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987), p. 370 (Ace 1988)
“The sign of a truly totalitarian culture is that important truths simply lack cognitive meaning”
Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist
letter to Alexander Cockburn (1 March 1990), later paraphrased in Deterring Democracy (1992) p. 345.
Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994
Context: The sign of a truly totalitarian culture is that important truths simply lack cognitive meaning and are interpretable only at the level of "Fuck You", so they can then elicit a perfectly predictable torrent of abuse in response. We've long ago reached that level.
Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher
Gillian Tett " Eliminate financial double-think http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/96810a0e-8d8f-11de-93df-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2TVG2oiL2" Financial Times, August 20, 2009
“Coercion is the least efficient means of obtaining order.”
Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle
Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 5 (p. 149)