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A form of influence such as advertising sets out intentionally to insulate reactors (mindless consumers) from the more conscious and critical selves (potential abstainers) not by multiplying alternatives (as laisser-faire advocates of the market economy would like to believe) but by provoking dormant and partial desires in a way that circumvents the normal, conscious, rational process.

— Benjamin Barber Forced to be Free (1971)

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More quotes by Benjamin Barber

Not only psychiatry itself but also the values reflected in its statistical definition of “normalcy” serve to condition men to habitual, unthinking, conformist behavior.

Forced to be Free (1971)

Jefferson thought schools would produce free men: we prove him right by putting dropouts in jail.

A Passion for Democracy: American Essays (2000)

Having created the conditions that make markets possible, democracy must do all the things that markets undo or cannot do.

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We know ourselves by understanding our temporality, our embeddedness in time, our connection to roots—even roots from which we have knowingly severed ourselves.

An Aristocracy of Everyone (1992)

The real struggle is in fact not for but against the minds of men. Persuasion as a form of coercion represents an assault on consciousness and intentionality.

Forced to be Free (1971)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Benjamin Barber (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.