In my own experience, I have been amazed to see how unrealistic are the bases for political opinion in general. Only rarely have I found a person who has chosen any particular political party - democratic or totalitarian - through study and comparison of principles.
Joost MeerlooPavlov's findings were that some animals learned more quickly if rewarded (by affection, by food, by stroking) each time they showed the right response, while others learned more quickly when the penalty for not learning was a painful stimulus.
Joost MeerlooThe big lie and monotonously repeated nonsense have more emotional appeal in a cold war than logic and reason.
Joost MeerlooThe flight from study and awareness is much too common in a world that throws too many confusing pictures to the individual. For the sake of our democracy, based on freedom and individualism, we have to bring ourselves back to study again and again. Otherwise, we can become easy victims of a well-planned verbal attack on our minds and our consciences.
Joost MeerlooIt's among the intelligentsia that we often find the glib compulsion to explain everything and to understand nothing.
Joost MeerlooThe tension of a mysterious danger is even more unbearable than danger itself. People hate the vacuum of an unknown situation. They want security. They even prefer war to the insecure expectation of a war with its threat of enemy surprise. This vague fearful expectation acts on their fantasies. They anticipate all kinds of mysterious dangers; they begin to provoke them. It is the evocation of fear and danger in order to escape the tension of insecurity.
Joost Meerloo