‘Masses are always breeding grounds of psychic epidemics.’ – Carl Jung
“[The masses] have never thirsted after truth. They demand illusions, and cannot do without them. They constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real; they are almost as strongly influenced by what is untrue as by what is true. They have an evident tendency not to distinguish between the two.” Sigmund Freud (1856 to 1939) founding father of psychoanalysis.
"Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession -- their ignorance. -- Hendrik van Loon (1882-1944) Dutch-American historian and journalist
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.” Gustave Le Bon The Crowd: A Study Of The Popular Mind. 1895. A leading French polymath whose areas of interest included anthropology, psychology, sociology, medicine, invention, and physics. Died in 1931.
"It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people." -- Giordano Bruno [Iordanus Brunus Nolanus] (1548-1600) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, astrologer. Source: The Shadows of Ideas, Paris, 1582
"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic." - Dresden James
The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of the masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom fighters; the latter that attitude held by power-thirsty politicians." : Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
“The abolition of war is no longer an ethical question to be pondered solely by learned philosophers and ecclesiastics, but a hard core one for the decision of the masses whose survival is the issue. Many will tell you with mockery and ridicule that the abolition of war can only be a dream - that it is the vague imagining of a visionary. But we must go on or we will go under… We must have new thoughts, new ideas, new concepts. We must break out of the straight jacket of the past. We must have sufficient imagination and courage to translate the universal wish for peace - which is rapidly becoming a necessity - into actuality.” General Douglas MacArthur July 5, 1961
"The nation is sick; trouble is in the land, confusion all around... But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century. Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee, the cry is always the same: 'We want to be free.'" -- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), US civil rights leader. 3 April 1968
“There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.” – William Jennings Bryan, “Cross of Gold” speech at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country." -- Edward Bernays (1891-1995) "Father" of modern public relations (PR) and director of the U.S. Committee on Public Information during World War I, on government propaganda Source: writing in "Propaganda" from "Food & Water Journal'' (1928)
“There are many ways to handle public opinion, in which the ideology of capitalism has been grounded and brought to the level of myths. It is combination of false truths that are being repeated a million times, over the generations, and therefore become indisputable for many. They were designed to represent capitalism as credible and enlist the support and confidence of the masses. These myths are distributed and promoted via media tools, educational institutions, family traditions, church memberships, etc. Here are the most common of these myths.” Lubov Lulko, Ten Myths About Capitalism
The Law of the Few. History is made by the few, whilst the masses toil at work. For example, the second major revolution in Sapiens’ history – the Agricultural Revolution (around 12,000 years ago) – enabled increased food production and massive population growth, but it forced that average farmer into monotonous hard labour. The fruits of the Agricultural Revolution were enjoyed by a few pampered elites, but who were freed up to make history. For Harari, the Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest fraud. Yuval Noah Harari 2014
‘Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself.’ – Carl Jung
“That ‘the mind is mightier than the sword.’ It can literally believe ANYTHING! LITERALLY ANYTHING! And then willingly kill or die (or let the masses suffer) to defend what it believes. And then choose not to do what it knows NEEDS to be done! Consider the human, economic, and environmental costs related to obesity, smoking, war, genocide, ecocide, not feeding the hungry, not housing the homeless, not healing the sick…as a short list of examples (I have a file of others if you want them). I have found admiration for those who do what needs to be done (and have a special file for such ‘heroes’ to turn to when I start ‘feeling uncomfortable’ or losing my courage to tell people what they really need to know…instead of what makes them feel comfortable. And I know righteousness rarely works.” Cw The 2nd thing I learned after 2001.
No comments:
Post a Comment