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It was in 1956 that the German philosopher Günther Anders wrote this reflection:"To suffocate any revolt in advance, it should not be done violently. Archaic methods like Hitler's are clearly outdated. It is enough to create a collective conditioning so powerful that the very idea of revolt will no longer even come to men's minds. The ideal would be to format individuals from birth by limiting their innate biological abilities...Then the conditioning will continue by drastically reducing the level and quality of education, reducing it to a form of professional insertion. An uneducated individual has only a horizon of thought is limited to material, mediocre concerns, the less he can revolt. It is necessary that access to knowledge becomes increasingly difficult and elitist....that the gap digs between the people and science, that information addressed to the general public is anesthetized of subversive content.Especially without philosophy. Once again, persuasion, not direct violence, must be used: mass broadcasting through television, imbecile entertainment, always flattering the emotional, the instinctive.Let's occupy our minds with idle chatter and incessant music, prevent the mind from questioning itself, from thinking, from reflecting.Let's put sexuality in the front row of human interests. As social anesthesia, there is nothing better. Generally, let's banish seriousness from existence, turn everything of high value into a mockery, keep up a constant apology for levity; so that the euphoria of advertising, of consumption becomes the standard of human happiness and the model of freedom.Thus, the conditioning will produce such integration that the only fear (that will need to be maintained) will be that of being excluded from the system, and therefore, of no longer being able to access the material conditions necessary for "happiness". The mass man, thus produced, must be treated as what he is: a product, a calf, and must be watched as a herd must be watched. Anything that allows his lucidity, his critical and socially good mind to fall asleep, anything that would risk awakening it, must be fought, ridiculed, suffocated...Any doctrine that calls the system into question should be designated as subversive and terrorist, and then those who support it should be treated as such.Günther Anders-"The Obsolescence of Man" 1956Photos 1919🤦