Media Control is my first Noam Chomsky book. Although the book is 30 years old, its ideas still resonate. These are some of my notes.
State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect. It was a lesson learned by Hitler and many others, and it has been pursued to this day.
This is what I think is happening with socialism/communism in India and Kerala. We have an intellectual class who think communism is the way and that it signals intelligence and superior morals.
[a typical Leninist view is that] a vanguard of revolutionary intellectuals take state power, using popular revolutions as the force that brings them to state power, and drive the stupid masses toward a future that they’re too dumb and incompetent to envision for themselves.
This is what I said in my previous point. If you want to see this in action, come to Kerala. Fundamentally, democracy does not work for totalitarians. So, they use propaganda to keep people in line.
You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, and everybody’s going to be for.
While reading the book, I wondered if governments are actually smart enough to do this or if it’s just a conspiracy, but as it is often proven, this indeed happens and is frequently confirmed.