4 ms·
You are correct. “The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same
by marcusverus 2y ago
You are correct.
“The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they... have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognized before... the most efficient technique to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning. Few traits of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language"
~F.A. Hayek
- ossobuco 2y agoThe irony of quoting Hayek, the collaborator of Pinochet, one of the worst dictators of the last century, to warn about the dangers of totalitarian regimes. Even more ironic is that "use the old words but change their meaning" is something our "democratic" ruling class keeps doing very often.
- marcusverus 2y agoPinochet killed a few thousand people, which is awful but is not, by any objective reckoning, a reign that puts him in the company of the worst dictators of the last century[0][1] Those who do this in the ruling class always use it to dupe the people into opposing their own interests--hardly ironic. [0]https://reason.com/volokh/2022/11/09/data-on-mass-murder-by-government-in-the-20th-century/ https://reason.com/volokh/2022/11/09/data-on-mass-murder-by-... [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile