“True goal of totalitarian propaganda is not persuasion, but organization of the polity. ... What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part.”
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries. It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives.”
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
“One of the greatest advantages of the totalitarian elites of the twenties and thirties was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive.”
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
“The outstanding negative quality of the totalitarian elite is that it never stops to think about the world as it really is and never compares the lies with reality.”
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
“There is hardly a better way to avoid discussion than by releasing an argument from the control of the present and by saying that only the future will reveal its merits.”
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
Jorge’s 2025 Year in Books
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