"I had learned too much history not to know that the great masses always and at once respond to the force of gravity in the direction of the powers that be. I knew that the same voices which yelled “Heil Schuschnigg” today would thunder “Heil Hitler” tomorrow."
- Stefan Zweig

“The herd instinct of the mob was not yet as offensively powerful in public life as it is today; freedom in what you did or did not do in private life was taken for granted...toleration was not deplored as a weakness & debility, but was praised as an ethical force”
- Stefan Zweig
“It remains an irrefragable law of history that contemporaries are denied a recognition of the early beginnings of the great movements which determine their times.”
- Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
“How Lilliputian all those anxieties were, how serene that time!”
- Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
“For a society is always most cruel to those who disclose and reveal its secrets, when through dishonesty society itself has outraged Nature.”
- Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
"It is never until one realizes that one means something to others that one feels there is any point or purpose in one’s own existence"
- Stefan Zweig
"Nothing on earth puts more pressure on the human mind than nothing."
- Stefan Zweig
"All office workers are afraid of being late for work."
- Stefan Zweig
“We are happy when people/things conform and unhappy when they don't. People and events don't disappoint us, our models of reality do. It is my model of reality that determines my happiness or disappointments.”
- Stefan Zweig
“It always demands a far greater degree of courage for an individual to oppose an organized movement than to let himself be carried along with the stream."
- Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig was born in Vienna in 1881. He was Jewish. He was a novelist, playwright, journalist & very successful. He fled the Nazis. By 1942 he & his wife were living in Brazil where they both committed suicide the day after he posted "The World of Yesterday" to his publisher

More from For later read

The common understanding of propaganda is that it is intended to brainwash the masses. Supposedly, people get exposed to the same message repeatedly and over time come to believe in whatever nonsense authoritarians want them to believe /1

And yet authoritarians often broadcast silly, unpersuasive propaganda.

Political scientist Haifeng Huang writes that the purpose of propaganda is not to brainwash people, but to instill fear in them /2


When people are bombarded with propaganda everywhere they look, they are reminded of the strength of the regime.

The vast amount of resources authoritarians spend to display their message in every corner of the public square is a costly demonstration of their power /3

In fact, the overt silliness of authoritarian propaganda is part of the point. Propaganda is designed to be silly so that people can instantly recognize it when they see it


Propaganda is intended to instill fear in people, not brainwash them.

The message is: You might not believe in pro-regime values or attitudes. But we will make sure you are too frightened to do anything about it.

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I'm going to do two history threads on Ethiopia, one on its ancient history, one on its modern story (1800 to today). 🇪🇹

I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):


The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹


Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹


References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹