Applied Psychology (1920)

That nightmare was almost realized in Hitler's totalitarian system." Almost, but not quite. The Nazis did not have time and perhaps did not have the intel]ligence and the necessary knowledge to brainwash and condition their lower leadership. This, it may be, is one of the reasons why they failed. Since Hitler's day the armory of technical devices at the disposal of the would-be dictator has been con]siderably enlarged. As well as the radio, the loud]speaker, the moving picture camera and the rotary press, the contemporary propagandist can make use of television to broadcast the image as well as the voice of his client, and can record both image and voice on spools of magnetic tape. Thanks to technological prog]ress, Big Brother can now be almost as omnipresent as God. Nor is it only on the technical front that the hand of the would-be dictator has been strengthened. Since Hitler's day a great deal of work has been car]ried out in those fields of applied psychology and neu]rology which are the special province of the propagandist, the indoctrinator and the brainwasher ...»