The child is father of the man: And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.
William WordsworthRead
Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Propaganda undermines democracy in a similar way that violence undermines a dictatorship.
This quote by William Blum highlights the insidious nature of propaganda in democratic societies, suggesting that just as violence is a tool of oppression in a dictatorship, propaganda serves to manipulate and control public perception and thought in a democracy. Both are mechanisms of power that serve to distort reality and suppress true understanding among the populace.
Themes
PropagandaDemocracyControlManipulationPower
In practice
Example use cases
In a political debate, one might say, 'As William Blum observed, propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.'
Similar quotes
A man has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it; and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification.
D. H. LawrenceRead
Our torments also may in length of time Become our Elements.
John MiltonRead
Maybe every other American movie shouldn't be based on a comic book. Other countries will think Americans live in an infantile fantasy land where reality is whatever we say it is and every problem can be solved with violence.
Bill MaherRead
Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself -- will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth in my thought machine, such as it is. There are teeth missing, God knows -- some I was born without, teeth that will never grow. And other teeth have been stripped by the clutchless shifts of history -- But never have I willfully destroyed a tooth on a gear of my thinking machine. Never have I said to myself, 'This fact I can do without.
Kurt VonnegutRead
It is the eternal struggle between these two principles - right and wrong. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time and will ever continue to struggle. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it."
Abraham LincolnRead