Indoctrination Quotes

• The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control - 'indoctrination,' we might say - exercised through the mass media.

  Noam Chomsky

  Media, Democracy, United States

  Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault (2006). “The Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature”, The New Press

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• He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.

  Adolf Hitler

  Rise To Power, Individual Happiness, Church Ministry

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• Education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today, but is replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination.

  Thomas Sowell

  School, Today, Neglected

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• The indoctrination is so deep that educated people think they’re being objective.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, People, Educated

  "On Fake News and Other Societal Woes". Interview with Irene, chomsky.info. December 7, 2005.

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  Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

  Richard Dawkins

  Education, Atheist, Children

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.300, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Society, and the family as its psycho social agent, has to solve a difficult problem: How to break a person's will without his being aware of it? Yet by a complicated process of indoctrination, rewards, punishments, and fitting ideology, it solves this task by and large so well that most people believe they are following their own will and are unaware that their will itself is conditioned and manipulated.

  Erich Fromm

  Believe, Simple, Punishment

  Erich Fromm (2013). “To Have Or To Be?”, p.67, A&C Black

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• ...I am afraid that education is conceived more in terms of indoctrination by most school officials than in terms of enlightenment. My own belief is that education must be subversive if it is to be meaningful. By this I mean that it must challenge all the things we take for granted, examine all accepted assumptions, tamper with every sacred cow, and instill a desire to question and doubt. Without this the mere instruction to memorise data is empty. The attempt to enforce conventional mediocrity on the young is criminal.

  Bertrand Russell

  Meaningful, School, Data

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• For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination.

  Noam Chomsky

  Practice, Tasks, Media Propaganda

  Noam Chomsky, Carlos Peregrín Otero (2003). “Chomsky on Democracy and Education”, p.212, Psychology Press

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• It is no longer higher education, it is higher 'indoctrination '

  Dennis Prager

  Higher Education, Higher

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• I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.

  Albert Einstein

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., September 28, 1949.

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• If you are religious at all, it is overwhelmingly probable that your religion is that of your parents. If you were born in Arkansas and you think Christianity is true and Islam false (knowing full well that you would think the opposite if you had been born in Afghanistan), you are the victim of childhood indoctrination.

  Richard Dawkins

  Religious, Thinking, Opposites

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.25, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Education means to bring out wisdom. Indoctrination means to push in knowledge.

  Dick Gregory

  Mean, Justice, Diversity

  Dick Gregory (1972). “No More Lies: The Myth and the Reality of American History”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black.

  James A. Baldwin

  Education, School, White

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• When the state intervenes to insure the indoctrination of some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in favor of that doctrine.

  Bertrand Russell

  Government, Doe, Doctrine

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• If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.

  Doris Lessing

  Thinking, Think For Yourself, Ifs

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• About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church... As long as I can remember. I have resented mass indoctrination. I cannot prove to you there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws

  Albert Einstein

  Liars, Believe, Thinking

  "Einstein and the poet". Book by William Hermanns, p. 132, 1983.

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• The great irony is that people who live in remote areas, who are illiterate and don't own TVs, are in some ways more free because they are beyond the reach of indoctrination by the modern mass media.

  Arundhati Roy

  Media, People, Way

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Freedom from indoctrination ought to be a basic human right for all children.

  Bjorn Ulvaeus

  Children, Humans, Ought

  "Religion and schools don't mix" by Björn Ulvaeus, www.theguardian.com. June 30, 2009.

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• we have not yet developed a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination.

  Doris Lessing

  Education, Educational, Golden Notebook

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• There are a lot of universities that are as dangerous with the indoctrination of the children as terrorists are in Iran or North Korea. We have been setting up reeducation camps. We call them universities.

  Glenn Beck

  Children, Iran, Korea

  "Locative Praxis and Artivism". Interview with Mél Hogan, melhogan.com. December 17, 2013.

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• In a home school, the kid does 95% of the work. But in a school system, since it's an indoctrination system, a teacher has to do 95% of the work.

  John Taylor Gatto

  Teacher, Home, School

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• The first goal and primary function of the U.S. public school is not to educate good people, but good citizens. It is the function which we call - in enemy nations - 'state indoctrination.'

  Jonathan Kozol

  School, People, Goal

  Jonathan Kozol (1990). “The Night Is Dark and I Am Far from Home”, Touchstone Books

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• I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely ... The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.

  Rick Santorum

  Country, Kids, College

  "Santorum: Obama wants to 'indoctrinate' students by boosting college enrollment". www.cbsnews.com. February 23, 2012.

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• A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and tell them what to write as much as they like, but they cannot vanish what has been written in the past, though they try often enough...People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.

  Doris Lessing

  Book, Writing, Thinking

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• Conditioning obstructs our view of reality. We do not see IT in its suchness because of our indoctrination, crooked and twisted.

  Bruce Lee

  Reality, Views, Twisted

  Bruce Lee (2015). “Bruce Lee Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living”, p.19, Tuttle Publishing

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