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In 1956, the German-Jewish philosopher Günther Anders wrote this reflection, whether it was prophetic or programmatic is unclear:
“To suppress any uprising in advance, it is important not to do so violently. Archaic methods like Hitler's are clearly outdated. It is enough to create a collective conditioning so strong that the very idea of revolt ceases to exist.
The ideal would be to train individuals from birth by limiting their innate biological abilities...
Then we would continue to condition by drastically reducing the level and quality of education, to bring it back to a form of professional integration. An uneducated individual has only a limited horizon of thought, and the more his thought is limited to material, mediocre concerns, the less he can revolt.
We must ensure that access to knowledge becomes more and more difficult and elitist... ... that the gap widens between men and science, that information intended for the general public is anesthetized by any subversive content. Especially without philosophy. There again, it is necessary to use persuasion and not direct violence: one will massively diffuse, by the means of television, astonishing entertainments, always flattering the emotional, the instinctive.
We will occupy minds with what is vain and playful. It's good with incessant chatter and music, to keep the mind from wondering, thinking, pondering.
We will put sexuality at the forefront of human interests. As a social anesthetic, there is nothing better. Care will generally be taken to banish the seriousness of existence, to make fun of everything that has value, to maintain a constant plea for levity; so that the euphoria of advertising, of consumption, becomes the standard of human happiness and the model of freedom.
Conditioning will thus produce such self-integration that the only fear (which will have to be maintained) will be that of being excluded from the system and therefore of not being able to access the material conditions necessary for happiness. The ordinary man, thus produced, must be treated as what he is: a product, a calf, and must be supervised as a herd must be. Anything that allows his lucidity to fall asleep, his critical spirit is socially good, anything that might wake him up must be fought, ridiculed, stifled...
Any doctrine that challenges the system must first be categorized as subversive and terrorist, and those who support it must then be treated as such."
Günther Anders - The Obsolescence of Man, 1956
English
