“Though it is disguised by the illusion that a bureaucracy accountable to a majority of voters, and susceptible to the pressure of organized minorities, is not exercising compulsion, it is evident that the more varied and comprehensive the regulation becomes, the more the state becomes a despotic power as against the individual. For the fragment of control over the government which he exercises through his vote is in no effective sense proportionate to the authority exercised over him by the government.” StatesGovernmentIndividualExerciseAuthorityIllusionVotePressureMajorityOrganizedMinoritiesVotersRegulationEvidentBureaucracyFragmentsCompulsionComprehensiveSusceptible Author:Walter Lippmann
“In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by "thou shalt not", the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by "love" or "reason", he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.” ThinkingWayHumansReasonLawCertainIndividualHuman BeingsAnimalOpinionTheoryAmountPressureBehaveUrgesConformityBehaviourPublic OpinionCompulsionPractiseEccentricityArbiterGregarious Book:All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays Source: All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays
“The individual, by means of the discipline imposed on him by sport, not only plays and finds relaxation from the various compulsions to which he is subjected, but without knowing it trains himself for new compulsions. ... Training in sports makes of the individual an efficient piece of apparatus which is henceforth unacquainted with anything but the harsh joys of exploiting his body and winning.” MeanPlayBodyJoyWinningIndividualSportsKnowingPiecesDisciplineTrainingTrainVariousEfficientHarshRelaxationCompulsion Author:Jacques Ellul
“The multiplication of individual sects should not fool us: the important point is that the whole of America is preoccupied with the sect as a moral institution, with its immediate demand for beatification, its material efficacity, its compulsion for justification, and doubtless also with its madness and frenzy.” ShouldImportantWholeAmericaIndividualMoralMaterialsFoolDemandMadnessInstitutionsJustificationCompulsionSectsFrenzyMultiplication Book:America Source: America