In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a
free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or
it might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in
our Western capitalist democracies- the development of a vast mass
communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the
false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word,
they failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.
In the past, most people never got a chance of fully satisfying this
appetite. They might long for distractions, but the distractions were not
provided. Christmas came but once a year, feasts were “solemn and rare”, there
were few readers and very little to read, and the nearest approach to a
neighborhood movie theatre was the parish church, where the performances,
though infrequent, were somewhat monotonous. For conditions even remotely
comparable to those now prevailing we must return to imperial Rome, where the
populace was kept in good humour by frequent, gratuitous does of many kinds of
entertainment- from poetical dramas to gladiatorial fights, from recitations of
Virgil to all-out boxing. From concerts to military reviews and public executions.
But even in Rome there was nothing like the non-stop distraction now provided
by newspapers and magazines, by radio, television and the cinema. In Brave New
World non-stop distractions of the most fascinating nature (the feelies, orgy
porgy, centrifugal bumblepupply) are deliberately used as instruments of
policy, for the purpose of preventing people from paying too much attention to
the realities of the social and political situation .The other world of
religion is different from the other world of entertainment: but they resemble
one another in being most decidedly “not of this world.” Both are distractions
and, if lived in too continuously, both can become, in Marx’s phrase, “the
opium of the people” and so a threat to freedom. Only the vigilant can maintain
their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the
spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A
society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the
spot, not here and now and in the calculable future, but somewhere else, in the
irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical
fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those who would
manipulate and control it.
In their propaganda today’s dictators rely for the most part on
repetition, suppression and rationalization – the repetition of catchwords
which they wish to be an accepted as true, the suppression of facts which they
wish to be ignored, the arousal and rationalization of passions which may be
used in the interests of the party or the state.
As the art and science of manipulation came to be better understood, the
dictators of the future will doubtless learn to combine these techniques with
the non-stop distractions which, in the West are now threatening to drown in a
sea of irrelevance the retinal propaganda essential to the maintenance of
individual liberty and the survival of democratic institutions.
1.
The author would be most likely to agree that
propaganda
A.
Can serve a vital function in democracy
B.
Is concerned mainly with the irrelevant
C.
is now
combined with entertainment
D.
Is universally recognized as a danger
2.
The “early advocates of universal literacy” are
mentioned as
A.
Advocates of propaganda
B.
Opponents
of an idea that the author thinks is correct
C.
Proponents of an idea that he author wishes t
counter
D.
People who made wrong predictions about freedom
of the press
3.
The author refers to “ Brave New World” as a
fictional example of a society in which
a.
Non-stop distractions are the main instrument
of government policy
b.
People are
totally unaware of political realities
c.
Entertainment is used to keep people from full awareness
of social realities
d.
Entertainment resembles religion in its effects
on the masses
4.
By “intelligently on the spot” the author
apparently means
A.
alert to the dangers of propaganda
B.
In a particular society at a particular time
C.
In a specific time and place
D.
Conscious of political and social realities
Answer:
1.
A The
last sentence tells us that rational propaganda is “essential to the
maintenance of individual liberty and the survival of democratic institutions.”
This clearly suggests that answer A is correct.
2.
C The
“early advocates envisaged two possibilities; the propaganda could be concerned
with the true or the false. The author wishes to show that their ideas were
limited and that propaganda today is mainly concerned with the “Unreal”. In
other words that author only mentions these ideas so that he can knock them
down and thus to form an introduction to the idea that he wishes to discuss.
3.
C The
non-stop distractions in Brave New World are used “for the purpose of
preventing people from paying too much attention to the realities of the social
and political situation”. This is paraphrased in option C.
4.
D The
author uses the phrase ‘on the spot’ twice. In the second instance he amplifies
thus: not here and now and in the calculable future, but somewhere else, in the
irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical
fantasy. It is obvious he means the phrase to relate to an awareness of the
actually and potentially real as opposed to the unreal.
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