Two Forms of Power by Gerald Hüther

"“To suppress a rebellion, it is not necessary to act violently. Methods like Hitler's are outdated. It suffices to create such a strong collective conditioning that the very thought of rebellion no longer arises in people's minds. The ideal would be to shape people from birth and restrict their innate biological abilities. Afterwards, one would continue with conditioning and strictly reduce education to the acquisition of professional skills. An uneducated person has a limited horizon, and the more their thinking is confined to mediocre aspirations, the less capable they are of rebelling. We must ensure that access to science becomes increasingly difficult and elitist, that a divide forms between people and science, and that information for the general public contains no subversive content. Above all, no philosophy. Here too, we must use the power of persuasion, not open violence. On television, large-scale entertainment programs are broadcast that appeal exclusively to feelings or instincts. The mind will be occupied with the useless and playful. They can distract their minds from thinking through constant chatter and music. We will place sexuality at the very top of a person's interest list. There is no better social tranquilizer. In general, we will do this so that the serious part of existence is eliminated, everything valuable is ridiculed, and frivolity is constantly supported, so that public euphoria becomes the measure of human happiness and a model of freedom. In this way, conditioning leads to such integration that our only fear is being excluded from the system and thus losing access to the conditions necessary for happiness. The mass person thus formed must be treated as what he is: like a cow, and one must care for him like a herd. Everything that leads to the apathy of his clear mind is a public good, and everything that could awaken this good must be mocked, suppressed, and fought. Any doctrine questioning the system must be branded as subversive and terrorist. And those who support it will then be treated as terrorists.”" Günther Anders

"The holders of authority and those who take advantage of it must convince people of this fiction and put to sleep their realistic, that is to say, critical, faculty of thought. Every thinking person knows the methods of propaganda, methods by which critical judgment is destroyed and the mind is lulled until it submits to clichés that stultify people because they make them dependent, depriving them of the ability to trust their eyes and their judgment. This function, in which they believe, blinds them to reality." Erich Fromm