Big fish in little ponds

I recently came across the following quote by Noam Chomsky:

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.

It occurs to me that the scope of the quote can be expanded beyond public opinion and media if you make a small substitution:

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the their meaningful choices at election time, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Avatar of Mike M.
    Mike M. June 20, 2011 Reply

    Erich,

    Bulls-eye on your Chomsky expansion.

    A. Craft an illusion of choice.

    B. Unleash the expertise of the media hypnotists.

    C. Allow the phony debates to flare up and bewitch the gullible.

    D.(optional) Chuckle evily behind the Government curtain as the people swallow the bait and the hook without even realizing it.

    Pure stage magic – simple and effective.

    1. Avatar of Erich Vieth
      Erich Vieth June 20, 2011

      Mike M.: It reminds me of the tactic that parents use on toddlers. "Do you want to go to sleep NOW, or in 5 minutes?" This "choice" gives the child a feeling of empowerment. It calms down the unwitting prisoner, even though the situation smells strongly of a "false dilemma":

      A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, fallacy of false choice, black-and-white thinking or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses) is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are additional options (sometimes shades of grey between the extremes). For example, "It wasn't medicine that cured Ms. X, so it must have been a miracle."

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

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