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“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...
by alfiedotwtf 12y ago
“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....”
-- Noam Chomsky, The Common Good
- jensen123 12y agoAs far as I can tell, there's no need to do anything at all to keep people passive and obedient. Most people seem to be born that way. They're kinda zombie like. Don't believe me? Look at the Stanley Milgram experiments.
- gress 12y agoWhat have milgram's experiments got to do with how people are born? He experimented with adults.
- hansjorg 12y ago> Most people seem to be born that way. >Look at the Stanley Milgram experiments. Milgram did experiments on newborns?
- logfromblammo 12y ago~ Judging by how they shamelessly manipulate their own parents, I'm sure every last one of those little jerks would have gone all the way up to the maximum pretend voltage. ~
- jensen123 12y agoFair enough. I should have found a better example. But do you really think those obedient people got that way because there's some sort of conspiracy by some elite, like Noam Chomsky alludes to?
- mjklin 12y agoAlexis de Tocqueville noted this as a feature of American society in the mid-1800s. Chomsky would be flattering himself to think it was an original idea or that it was imposed from on high.
- ghayes 12y agoI don't believe that quote assumes the idea is original. Most aren't.