THE BIG LIE
Scholars of authoritarianism call a lie of such
magnitude a “Big Lie,” a key propaganda tool associated with Nazi Germany. It
is a lie so huge that no one can believe it is false. If leaders repeat it
enough times, refusing to admit that it is a lie, people come to think it is
the truth because surely no one would make up anything so outrageous.
In his autobiography Mein Kampf, or “My
Struggle,” Adolf Hitler wrote that people were more likely to believe a giant
lie than a little one because they were willing to tell small lies in their own
lives but “would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.” Since they
could not conceive of telling “colossal untruths…they would not believe that
others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” He went
on: “Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to
their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that
there may be some other explanation.”
The U.S. Office of Strategic Services had picked up on
Hitler’s manipulation of his followers when it described Hitler’s psychological
profile. It said, “His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off;
never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your
enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on
one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will
believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently
enough people will sooner or later believe it.”
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