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.
PowerSocietyPropagandaFreedomControlDebatePublic discourseOpinion
Vibrant debate can still shift power even within limits.
Reform is a word you always ought to watch out for. Like, when Mao started the Cultural Revolution it wasn't called a reform; reform is a change that you're su…
Stability means we run it. There are countries that are very stable. Cuba is stable, but that's not called stability.
I don't say you're self-censoring - I'm sure you believe everything you're saying; but what I'm saying is, if you believed something different, you wouldn't be…
You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor... Public opinion is a permeating influence, a…
There is more than one kind of freedom... Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't u…
The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as fellow-citizens, to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others, is so energe…