Goebbels sought to displace individual thought rather than win arguments

Evidence

With total attention control, the Nazi Propaganda Ministry was able to sell a new faith, one vested not in the power of choice but in the glory of something greater and of giving oneself over to it. “There are two ways to make a revolution,” Goebbels wrote in 1933. “One can fire at the opponent with machine guns until he recognizes the superiority of those who have the machine guns. That is the simplest way. One can also transform a nation through a revolution of the spirit, not destroying the opponent, but winning him over.” This he meant not in the sense of winning an argument, but actually displacing individual thought and all its conflicting impulses. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 425

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s surveillance theme: the propaganda ministry’s total attention control parallels modern attention harvesting at national scale. — connects to: Authoritarian parties suppress reflection because thought exposes their arbitrariness.; Thought itself is a revolt against bowing to immediate things — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 619; Moral ideals reduced to subjective preference fatally weaken opposition to reality — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 555

Broader Connections

• Authoritarian parties suppress reflection because thought exposes their arbitrariness. #expands (0.85)
• Moral ideals reduced to subjective preference fatally weaken opposition to reality #expands (0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 555
• Thought itself is a revolt against bowing to immediate things #expands (0.75) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 619