Nobel prize for comedy

You can find the roots of the agenda in the writings of various British philosophers and intellectuals from early to mid 20th century. People like Aldous Huxley, H.G.Wells and Bertrand Russell, often mistakenly seen as champions of the oppressed, seemed to lay it down in cold surgical language when writing in publications or speaking in forums they assumed the general public would not desire access to.

Here's Bertrand Russell from his book The Scientific Outlook, published in 1931. What he says is fairly shocking as a prediction for our future, but there's no indication at this stage that he himself is in favour of a state using mind control on its people.

"Scientific societies are as yet in their infancy. It is to be expected that advances in physiology and psychology will give governments much more control over individual mentality than they now have - even in totalitarian countries. Fitche laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished."

"Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible."

Isn't it strange that back in the 1930's the idea was floated around that children could be "injected" into a state of model citizenry, and that nowadays - in 2008 - we have government scare campaigns that urge parents to have their children multi-vaccinated at 18 months old with shots that contain mercury and aluminium?

In his 1951 book, The Impact of Science on Society, Russell used less guarded language. Indeed, one could be forgiven for thinking that he, like Huxley towards the end of his life, had become quite fond of state-sponsored mind control:

"Physiology and psychology afford fields for scientific technique which still await development. Two great men, Pavlov and Freud, have laid the foundation. I do not accept the view that they are in any essential conflict, but what structure will be built on their foundations is still in doubt. I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology.... Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called "education." Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part.... It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment."

"The subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship....The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark grey."

"Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen."

In 1950, Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought".

Hmmm... Surely, there was some kind of mistake. Maybe they'd meant to give it to another 'Bertrand Russell'. One that wasn't a brainwashing elitist.