Politics is who gets what, when, how.
Harold LasswellRead
So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations, that every war must appear to be a war of defence against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about whom the public is to hate. Guilt and guilelessness must be assessed geographically and all the guilt must be on the other side of the frontier.
Interpretation
This quote discusses the psychological dynamics that justify war by framing it as a defense against a clear enemy.
Harold Lasswell's quote highlights the tendency of modern societies to construct narratives around war that portray themselves as victims fighting against clear aggressors. This psychological resistance shapes public perception, necessitating an unequivocal division between guilt and innocence, where the enemy is uniformly blamed while the inner conflict of one's own society is obscured.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the psychology of war in a political science class.
Politics is who gets what, when, how.
I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembered. You might as well try and catch time by the tail.
Few things in this world are more predictable than the reaction of conventional minds to unconventional ideas.
If principles can become dated, they're not principles.
Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.
The entire most beautiful order of things that are very good, when their measures have been accomplished, is to pass away.
You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more.
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