…though he spoke at the unveiling of 2 monuments to #Russia’s czar, Alexander III—a notorious #antisemite who encouraged #pogroms — #Putin not only refrained from wielding #Judeophobia as a #political tool but upbraided those who did. He ordered the head of #SCRF, Nikolai #Patrushev, to retract a stmnt by an aide who had described the ChabadLubavitch ultra-Orthodox movement as a “sect” whose adherents believed in their “supremacy over all nations & peoples.” (The ofcl was fired a few mos later.)
“Mass #propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in #cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”
― Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism" #quotes#mediaStudies#commOdon#truth#agnotology#history
"We must confess that our adversaries have a marked advantage over us in the discussion. In very few words they can announce a half-truth; and in order to demonstrate that it is incomplete, we are obliged to have recourse to long and dry dissertations."
— Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Sophisms, First Series (1845)