The Poor-Man's Guide to Modernity - Independent Media Center

– even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the
sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions
of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.’
--- Noam Chomsky.
At this point, before I go any further, please permit me to dust out the following observation of
novelist Aldous Huxley in the Brave New World to illustrate why I consider artful omissions and
silence, as counter-intuitive as it might appear to the profoundly innocent of knowledge, to be a
most powerful propaganda tool:
‘The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by
doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still
greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply
not mentioning certain subjects, by lowering what Mr. Churchill calls an
“iron curtain” between the masses and such facts or arguments as the
local political bosses regard as undesirable, totalitarian propagandists
have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have done
by the most eloquent denunciations, the most compelling of logical
rebuttals. But silence is not enough. If persecution, liquidation and the
other symptoms of social friction are to be avoided, the positive sides of
propaganda must be made as effective as the negative.’ — Aldous Huxley,
Preface (circa 1946) to Brave New World, 1931, Harper, pg. 11
I have to wonder about my sanity sometimes – why don't I get it when brilliant chiefs
inexplicably dabble in their own thought control, in their own self-policing?
Why do I persist in experimenting with independent thinking? Just accept the pious statements
of the Jewish chiefs that there is not a shred of evidence of the existence of the King of the
Jews controlling the state of affairs in the world today, lest I be labeled a 'kook', a 'denier of
established truths', and carted away to some re-education camp for my own, as well as other's
safety! 'Denier' I have already been anointed by none other than a recovering Jew, a reformed
Zionist, Christian friend of mine, Israel Shamir! Yes, I know I have accumulated some lovely
friends in my few journeys into the unknown world of independent thinking! I now try my best to
stay away from such confusions, and I believe this is one of my last few times as my new
year's resolution!
Before we jump too far ahead as I briefly did in the preceding passages to give a taste of the
The Poor-Man's Guide to Modernity 303 / 334 Zahir Ebrahim