Does it matter where that quote came from? I’m not a fan of the person who said it, but it beautifully captures the core of what courtesy’s all about. Alas, I’ve seen no such civility from his fanatical followers.
Some circles are not burdened by squaring their walk with their talk. They seem to think that advertising virtue equates to embodying it.
And when I showed an image of the owner of that quote in another post, I was scoffed at by someone who apparently doesn’t like him. All I did was share a timeless truth.
Would you assume I support Goebbels, Goering, and Hitler because I shared the timeless truths below?
The “essentially simple and repetitious” is not just about propaganda and lies — it’s also about latching onto truth in one form to flagrantly ignore lies in others. Just where would I find people willing to wonder what that means — and inquire to understand what role they play in persisting things that simply aren’t true?
Propaganda . . . must always be essentially simple and repetitious. In the long run, only he will achieve basic results in influencing public opinion who is able to reduce problems to the simplest terms and who has the courage to keep forever repeating them in this simplified form despite the objections of the intellectuals. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
— Joseph Goebbels’ diary, 1/29/42 (Third Reich Minister of Propaganda)
The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
— Hermann Goering. (Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, President of the Reichstag, Prime Minister of Prussia and, as Hitler’s designated successor, the second man in the Third Reich)
All this was inspired by the principle — which is quite true in itself — that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.
— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (James Murphy translation, page 134)
Had that person shown some politeness and consideration, he might have learned something far more valuable than dollars. And you’d like to think that people who flood the internet with that guy’s quotes would at least try to live up to them when challenged.
No such luck. In a country that’s become a cesspool of certitude — where politeness and consideration are window dressing at best:
Just where do I find the genuine article?
One Voice Became Two 