Reflections Through... Literature
Art is a Reflection of Reality
"In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable, and help to change it." -Ernst Fischer
Propaganda - By Edward L. Bernays
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic
society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."
Propaganda, an influential book written by Edward L. Bernays in 1928, incorporated the literature from social science and psychological manipulation into an examination of the techniques of public communication. Bernays wrote the book in response to the success of some of his earlier works such as Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and A Public Relations Counsel (1927). Propaganda explored the psychology behind manipulating masses and the ability to use symbolic action and propaganda to influence politics, effect social change, and lobby for gender and racial equality. Walter Lippman was Bernays' unacknowledged American mentor and his work The Phantom Public greatly influenced the ideas expressed in Propaganda a year later. The work propelled Bernays into media historians' view of him as the "father of public relations." (Excerpt from Wikipedia)
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Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes - By Andrew Lobaczewski
"The achievement of absolute domination by pathocrats in the government of a country cannot be permanent since large sectors of the society become disaffected by
such rule and eventually find some way of toppling it. This is part of the historical cycle, easily discerned when history is read from a Ponerological
point of view. Pathocracy at the summit of governmental organization also does not constitute the entire picture of the "mature phenomenon". Such a system of government has nowhere to go but down."
Political Ponerology: The scientific study of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes was forged in the crucible of the very subject it studies. Scientists living under an oppressive regime decide to study it clinically, to study the founders and supporters of an evil regime to determine what common factor is at play in the rise and propagation of man's inhumanity to man.
Shocking in its clinically spare descriptions of the true nature of evil, poignant in the more literary passages where the author reveals the suffering experienced by the researchers who were contaminated or destroyed by the disease they were studying, this is a book that should be required reading by every citizen of every country that claims a moral or humanistic foundation. For it is a certainty that morality and humanism cannot long withstand the predations of Evil. Knowledge of its nature, how it creates its networks and spreads, how insidious is its guileful approach, is the only antidote. (Excerpt from QFG Publishing)
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Non-Fiction Books
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos - Jordan B. Peterson
"We must each adopt as much responsibility as possible for individual life, society and the world. We must each tell the truth and repair what is in disrepair and break down and recreate what is old and outdated. It is in this manner that we can and must reduce the suffering that poisons the world. It's asking a lot. It's asking for everything."
Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World In Our Time - By Carroll Quigley
"The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies... is a foolish idea. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies."
The Most Dangerous Superstition - Larken Rose
The truth is that any form of authoritarian control-any type of "government," whether constitutional, democratic, socialist, fascist, or anything else-will result in a set of masters forcibly oppressing a group of slaves. That is what "authority" is-all it ever has been, and all it ever could be, no matter how many layers of euphemisms and pleasant rhetoric are used in an attempt to hide it.
The Cosmic Serpent - Jeremy Narby
"It seemed that no one had noticed the possible links between the “myths” of “primitive peoples” and molecular biology. No one had seen that the double helix had symbolized the life principle for thousands of years around the world. On the contrary, everything was upside down. It was said that hallucinations could in no way constitute a source of knowledge, that Indians had found their useful molecules by chances experimentation, and that their “myths” were precisely myths, bearing no relationship to the real knowledge discovered in laboratories."
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - John Perkins
"Although unconscious, deceived, and - in many cases - self-deluded, these players were not members of any clandestine conspiracy; rather, they were the product of a system that promotes the most subtle and effective form of imperialism the world has ever witnessed."
Manufacturing Consent - Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky
"The dominant media forms are quite large businesses; they are controlled by very wealthy people or by managers who are subject to sharp constraints by owners and other market-profit-oriented forces; and they are closely interlocked, and have important common interests, with other major corporations, banks, and government. This is the first powerful filter that effects news choices."
The Creature from Jekyll Island - G. Edward Griffin
"The Federal Reserve System was modeled very closely after the Bank of England. It was what the textbooks call a "central bank". That's just a code word. It doesn't really mean anything. It's not a bank at all... What it basically is, is a cartel - it's a partnership between the government and the private banks. ...the cartel went into partnership with the federal government - and cartels like to do that because only governments can enforce the cartel agreements."
Killing Hope - William Blum
"[American leaders] are perhaps not so much immoral as they are amoral. It's not that they take pleasure in causing so much death and suffering. It's that they just don't care ... the same that could be said about a sociopath. As long as the death and suffering advance the agenda of the empire, as long as the right people and the right corporations gain wealth and power and privilege and prestige, as long as the death and suffering aren't happening to them or people close to them ... then they just don't care about it happening to other people, including the American soldiers..."
Image And Reality Of The Israel-Palestine Conflict - Norman G. Finkelstein
"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." -Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
The Holocaust Industry - Norman G. Finkelstein
"Since the late 1960s, there has developed a kind of Holocaust industry which has made a cult of the Nazi Holocaust. And the purpose of this industry is, in my view, ethnic aggrandisement - in particular, to deflect criticism of the State of Israel and to deflect criticism of Jews generally."
The Big Breach - Richard Tomlinson
"MI6 have spent a substantial amount of British taxpayers' money on preventing me from taking them to an employment tribunal or informing the public of the toll that their lack of accountability has had on my life - a toll that mirrors the harm the unaccountable agency inflicts on other individuals whose civil liberties are violated."
Armed Madhouse - Greg Palast