“In the midst of increasing mechanization and technological organization, propaganda is simply the means used to prevent these things from being felt as too oppressive and to persuade man to submit with good grace.”

Vintage, p. xviii
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965)
Context: In the midst of increasing mechanization and technological organization, propaganda is simply the means used to prevent these things from being felt as too oppressive and to persuade man to submit with good grace. When man will be fully adapted to this technological society, when he will end by obeying with enthusiasm, convinced of the excellence of what he is forced to do, the constraint of the organization will no longer be felt by him; the truth is, it will no longer be a constraint, and the police will have nothing to do. The civic and technological good will and the enthusiasm for the right social myths — both created by propaganda — will finally have solved the problem of man.

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

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Jacques Ellul photo

“The civic and technological good will and the enthusiasm for the right social myths — both created by propaganda — will finally have solved the problem of man.”

Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965)
Context: In the midst of increasing mechanization and technological organization, propaganda is simply the means used to prevent these things from being felt as too oppressive and to persuade man to submit with good grace. When man will be fully adapted to this technological society, when he will end by obeying with enthusiasm, convinced of the excellence of what he is forced to do, the constraint of the organization will no longer be felt by him; the truth is, it will no longer be a constraint, and the police will have nothing to do. The civic and technological good will and the enthusiasm for the right social myths — both created by propaganda — will finally have solved the problem of man.

Vintage, p. xviii

David Allen photo

“Being organized simply means that where something is matches what it means to you. No more, no less.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

22 August 2011 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/105536813661298688
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

“The relationship between information and the mechanisms for its control is fairly simple to describe: Technology increases the available supply of information. …control mechanisms are strained…”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Technopoly: the Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992)
Context: The relationship between information and the mechanisms for its control is fairly simple to describe: Technology increases the available supply of information.... control mechanisms are strained... When additional control mechanisms are themselves technical, they in turn further increase the supply of information. When the supply of information is no longer controllable, a general breakdown in psychic tranquillity and social purpose occurs. Without defenses, people have no way of finding meaning in their experiences, lose their capacity to remember, and have difficulty imagining reasonable futures.

Noam Chomsky photo

“Moral equivalence is a term of propaganda that was invented to try to prevent us from looking at the acts for which we are responsible. …There is no such notion.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview by Tim Sebastian on BBC NEWS, February 2, 2002 http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20020227.htm.
Quotes 2000s, 2002
Context: Moral equivalence is a term of propaganda that was invented to try to prevent us from looking at the acts for which we are responsible.... There is no such notion. There are many different dimensions and criteria. For example, there's no moral equivalence between the bombing of the World Trade Center and the destruction of Nicaragua or of El Salvador, of Guatemala. The latter were far worse, by any criterion. So there's no moral equivalence.

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“For in order to command well, we should know how to submit; and he who submits with a good grace will some time become worthy of commanding.”
Nam et qui bene imperat, paruerit aliquando necesse est, et qui modeste paret, videtur qui aliquando imperet dignus esse.

Book III, section 2; translation by Francis Barham
De Legibus (On the Laws)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“Berndt handed in a plan for the occultist propaganda to be carried on by us. We are getting somewhere. The Americans and English fall easily for this kind of propaganda. We are therefore pressing into service all star witnesses of occult prophecy. Nostradamus must once again submit to being quoted.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Berndt reicht mir eine Ausarbeitung über die von uns zu betreibende okkultistische Propaganda ein. Hier wird in der Tat Einiges geleistet. Die Amerikaner und Engländer fallen ja vorzüglich auf eine solche Art von Propaganda herein. Wir nehmen alle irgendwie zur Verfügung stehenden Kronzeugen der okkulten Weissagung als Mithelfer in Anspruch. Nostradamus muß wieder einmal daran glauben.
Dated 19 May 1942 concerning the use of Nostradamus's famous "Hister" quatrain
as displayed and translated in Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy, Discovery Channel
Diary excerpts

Hans Fritzsche photo

“I mean, the realization that crime does not begin when you murder people. Crime begins with propaganda, even if such propaganda is for a good cause. The moment propaganda turns against another nation or against any human being, evil starts”

Hans Fritzsche (1900–1953) German Nazi official

To Leon Goldensohn, April 6, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
Context: What I would like to emanate from the darkness of this tragedy is one spark of life. I mean, the realization that crime does not begin when you murder people. Crime begins with propaganda, even if such propaganda is for a good cause. The moment propaganda turns against another nation or against any human being, evil starts. Whereas the Germans started propaganda toward the end of this tragedy, you Allies stand at the beginning of the tragedy.

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