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In order to keep the collective interest safe, a man who has cured his neighbor unlawfully it is an offense to do good unlawfully — is condemned on the pretext that he has no qualification; a man is prevented from championing the cause of a (free) citizen who has placed his trust in him; a writer is arrested; a publisher ruined; a propagandist thrown into prison; a man who cried out or behaved in a certain fashion is sent before the criminal assizes.
• 2
The importance of "controlling the public mind" has been recognized with increasing clarity as popular struggles succeeded in extending the modalities of democracy, thus giving rise to what liberal elites call "the crisis of democracy" as when normally passive and apathetic populations become organized and seek to enter the political arena to pursue their interests and demands, threatening stability and order. As Bernays explained the problem, with "universal suffrage and universal schooling... at last even the bourgeoisie stood in fear of the common people. For the masses promised to become king."
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There have certainly been very few examples of states, who have, by arts or policy, improved the original dispositions of human nature, or endeavored, by wise and effectual precautions, to prevent its corruption.
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...the poor people can learn nothing but what the king and his schoolmasters please...
• 5
...government, ere civilized, knows no other secret or policy, than that of entrusting unlimited powers to every governor or magistrate, and subdividing the people into so many classes and orders of slavery. From such a situation, no improvement can ever be expected in the sciences, in the liberal arts, in laws, and scarcely in the manual arts and manufactures. The same barbarism and ignorance, with which the government commences, is propagated to all posterity, and can never come to a period by the efforts or ingenuity of such unhappy slaves.
• 6
In all times and in all places, whatever may be the name of that the government takes, whatever has been its origin, or its organization, its essential function is always that of oppressing and exploiting the masses, and of defending the oppressors and exploiters. Its principal characteristic and indispensable instruments are the policeman and the tax collector, the soldier and the prison. And to these are necessarily added the time serving priest or teacher, as the case may be, supported and protected by the government, to render the spirit of the people servile and make them docile under the yoke.
• 7
In private life most people are fairly realistic. When one is making out one's weekly budget, two and two invariably make four. Politics, on the other hand, is a sort of sub-atomic or non-Euclidean word where it is quite easy for the part to be greater than the whole or for two objects to be in the same place simultaneously. Hence the contradictions and absurdities I have chronicled above, all finally traceable to a secret belief that one's political opinions, unlike the weekly budget, will not have to be tested against solid reality.
• 8
Where the influence of political power on the creative forces in society is reduced to a minimum, there culture thrives the best, for political rulership always strives for uniformity and tends to subject every aspect of social life to its guardianship.
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...when we assent implicitly to any political doctrine, there is no room for reason...
• 10
...the independent establishment of the state founds my lack of independence; its condition as a "natural growth," its organism, demands that my nature do not grow freely, but be cut to fit it. That it may be able to unfold in natural growth, it applies to me the shears of "civilization"; it gives me an education and culture adapted to it, not to me, and teaches me to respect the laws, to refrain from injury to state property (that is, private property), to reverence divine and earthly highness, etc.; in short, it teaches me to be -- unpunishable, "sacrificing" my ownness to "sacredness" (everything possible is sacred; property, others' life, etc.). In this consists the sort of civilization and culture that the state is able to give me: it brings me up to be a "serviceable instrument," a "serviceable member of society."
• 11
Is the state likely to be able to awaken so secure a temper and so forceful a self-consciousness in the menial? Can it make man feel himself? Indeed, may it even do so much as set this goal for itself? Can it want the individual to recognize his value and realize this value from himself?
• 12
...how is an "unlimited freedom" to be thinkable inside of the state or society? The state may well protect one against another, but yet it must not let itself be endangered by an unmeasured freedom, a so-called unbridleness. Thus in "freedom of instruction" the state declares only this - that it is suited with every one who instructs as the state (or, speaking more comprehensibly, the political power) would have it. The point for the competitors is this "as the state would have it...." In bidding freedom of instruction keep within the due bounds, the state at the same time fixes the scope of freedom of thought; because, as a rule, people do not think farther than their teachers have thought.
• 13
...as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax bill that I refuse to pay it.
• 14
...do what is right quietly and persistently not only without asking permission from Government, but consciously avoiding its participation. The strength of the Government lies in the people's ignorance, and the Government knows this, and will therefore always oppose true enlightenment. It is time we realized that fact. And it is most undesirable to let the Government, while it is spreading darkness, pretend to be busy with the enlightenment of the people.
• 15
...this Government knows very well what is really dangerous to it, and will never let people who submit to it and act under its guidance do anything that will undermine its authority. For instance take the cue before us: a Government such as ours, or any other which rests on the ignorance of the people will never consent to their being really enlightened. It will sanction all kinds of pseudo-educational organizations controlled by itself -- schools, high schools, universities, academies, and all kinds of committees and congresses, and publications sanctioned by the censor- so long as these organizations and publications serve its purpose -- that is, stupefy the people, or at least do not hinder their stupefaction. But as soon as those organizations or publications attempt to cure that on which the power of Government rests (namely, the blindness of the people), the Government will simply, and without rendering any account to anyone, or saying why it acts so and not otherwise, pronounce its veto, and will rearrange or close the establishments and organizations, and forbid the publications. And therefore, as both reason and experience clearly show, such an illusory, gradual conquest of rights is a self-deception which suits the Government admirably, and which it, therefore, is even ready to encourage.
Chronology :
April 13, 2020 : The State -- Added.
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