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“Enthusiasm and adventure
In all cases, propaganda of agitation tries to stretch energies to the utmost, obtain substantial sacrifices, and induce the individual to bear heavy ordeals. It takes him out of his everyday life, his normal framework, and plunges him into enthusiasm and adventure; it opens to him hitherto unsuspected possibilities, and suggests extraordinary goals that nevertheless seem to him completely within reach. Propaganda of agitation thus unleashes an explosive movement; it operates inside a crisis or actually provokes the crisis itself. On the other hand, such propaganda can obtain only effects of relatively short duration. If the proposed objective is not achieved fast enough, enthusiasm will give way to discouragement and despair. Therefore specialists in agitation propaganda break up the desired goals into a series of stages to be reached one by one.”
― Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes
In all cases, propaganda of agitation tries to stretch energies to the utmost, obtain substantial sacrifices, and induce the individual to bear heavy ordeals. It takes him out of his everyday life, his normal framework, and plunges him into enthusiasm and adventure; it opens to him hitherto unsuspected possibilities, and suggests extraordinary goals that nevertheless seem to him completely within reach. Propaganda of agitation thus unleashes an explosive movement; it operates inside a crisis or actually provokes the crisis itself. On the other hand, such propaganda can obtain only effects of relatively short duration. If the proposed objective is not achieved fast enough, enthusiasm will give way to discouragement and despair. Therefore specialists in agitation propaganda break up the desired goals into a series of stages to be reached one by one.”
― Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes
“The whole culture's shot through. The skeleton needs melting and re-shaping.”
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“the function of any emotion is to motivate behavior.”
― The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve
― The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve
“liges sine morbus vanae”
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“Humans appear to have an inbuilt, almost irresistible tendency to divide the world into “us” and “them,” good guys and bad, in-groups and out-groups. We see this everywhere: in politics, in religion, in sports and national pride. For Jesus, the poor and downtrodden were the in-group and the Pharisees and the rich the out-groups; for Marxists (much as for Jesus), the working class was the in-group and the ruling class the out-group; for the Nazis, the Aryan race was the in-group and Jews the main out-group; and for some radical feminists and “lesbian separatists,” women are the in-group and men the out-group.”
― The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve
― The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve
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