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Free Thought and Official Propaganda
Bertrand Russell
"If it is admitted that a condition of rational doubt would be desirable,
it becomes important to inquire how it comes about that there is so much
irrational certainty in the world. A great deal of this is due to the
inherent irrationality and credulity of average human nature. But this
seed of intellectual original sin is nourished and fostered by other
agencies, among which three play the chief part—namely, education,
propaganda, and economic pressure. Let us consider these in turn."
"Propaganda, conducted by the means which
advertisers have found successful, is now one of the recognized methods
of government in all advanced countries, and is especially the method by
which democratic opinion is created."
"The objection to propaganda is not only its appeal to unreason, but
still more the unfair advantage which it gives to the rich and powerful."
Jean-Henry Fabre
"On old potatoes, late in the season, the buds are seen to send forth
sprouts which need only a little sunshine to turn green and become
stalks. Agriculture makes good use of this peculiarity: to propagate
the plant it is customary to put into the ground, not the seeds, which
would yield no harvest before the lapse of several years, but the
tubers, which produce abundantly the same year."
"It is indeed on the leaves that the fundamental
principles of the plant’s life are based; it is in their substance
that, with the sun’s help, the descending sap is elaborated, this sap
being the nutritive fluid, the life-blood as it were, of the vegetable
organism. The propagation of the species comes next in importance. This
duty devolves on the flower-buds or those that blossom and produce
fruit, in the center of which are the seeds."
"Three modes of plant-propagation are in use among horticulturists,
namely: layering, slipping, and grafting."
John L. Spivak
"In preparation for the day when he might
have to fight for its control, he sent into the Republic a host of
spies, provocateurs, propagandists and saboteurs to establish
themselves, make contacts, carry on propaganda and build a machine
which would be invaluable in time of war."
"3. To appoint three ministers to coordinate industrial defense
(conscription in peace time); supervise military conscription; and,
coordinate the "political education of the people" (propaganda)."
John Locke
Preface
"I wish, where they have done the truth and the
public wrong, they would be as ready to redress it, and allow its just
weight to this reflection, viz. that there cannot be done a greater
mischief to prince and people, than the propagating wrong notions
concerning government; that so at last all times might not have reason
to complain of the Drum Ecclesiastic."
Marcus Aurelius
The Fourth Book
"XII. As a part hitherto thou hast had a particular subsistence: and now
shalt thou vanish away into the common substance of Him, who first begot
thee, or rather thou shalt be resumed again into that original rational
substance, out of which all others have issued, and are propagated.
Many small pieces of frankincense are set upon the same altar, one drops
first and is consumed, another after; and it comes all to one."
Mohammed (Peace be Upon Him) - Arabic trnsltd. by G. Margoliouth and J. M. Rodwell
SURA XXXVIII.-SAD [LIX.]
"Shall we treat those who believe and do the things that are right like those
who propagate evil on earth? Shall we treat the God-fearing like the impious?"
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