The greatest danger to the State is independent intellectual criticism; there is no better way to stifle that criticism than to attack any isolated voice, any raiser of new doubts, as a profane violator of the wisdom of his ancestors. Another potent ideological force is to deprecate the individual and exalt the collectivity of society. For since any given rule implies majority acceptance, any ideological danger to that rule can only start from one or a few independently-thinking individuals. The new idea, much less the new critical idea, must needs begin as a small minority opinion; therefore, the State must nip the view in the bud by ridiculing any view that defies the opinions of the mass. “Listen only to your brothers” or “adjust to society” this become ideological weapons for crushing individual dissent. - Anatomy of the State, Murray N. Rothbard.
Ludwig Wittgenstein once asked a friend, “Tell me, why do people say it is more natural to think that the sun rotates around the Earth than that the Earth is rotating?” The friend said, “Well, obviously, because it just seems like the sun is going around the Earth.” Wittgenstein replied, “Well, what would it seem like if it did seem like the Earth were rotating?”
