In a system based on violence, it is required only that official doctrine be obeyed. Propaganda is easily identified: Its source is a visible Ministry of Truth, and one may believe it or not as long as it is not openly rejected. The penalties for dissidence may vary in accord with the commitment of the state to violence: in the Soviet Union today, it may mean internal exile and imprisonment under grim conditions; in U.S. - supported charnel-houses such as El Salvador or Guatemala, the dissident is likely to be "disappeared" or to be found decapitated in a ditch after hideous torture.
The democratic systems of thought control are radically different in character. Violence is rare, at least against the more priviledged sectors, but a much more profound form of obedience is required. It is not enough that state doctrine be obeyed. Rather, it is deemed necessary to take over the entire spectrum of discussion. Nothing must remain thinkable apart from the Party Line. The doctrines of state religion are often not expressed, but rather presupposed as the framework for discussion among right minded people, a far more effective technique of thought control...
The nature of Western systems of indoctrination was not perceived by Orwell and is typically not understoon by dictators, who fail to comprehend the utility for propaganda of a critical stance that incorporates the basic assumptions of official doctrine and thereby marginalizes authentic and rational critical discussion, which must be blocked. There is rarely any departure from this pattern.
....
All of this falls under the rubric of what Walter Lippman, in 1921, called "the manufacture of consent," an art which is "capable of great refinements" and will lead to a "revolution" in "the practice of democracy." This art has been much admired in the social sciences. The well-known American political scientist Harold Lasswell wrote in 1933 that we must avoid "democratic dogmatisms," such as the belief that people are "the best judges of their own interests." Democracy permits the voice of the people to be heard, and it is the task of the intellectual to ensure that this voice endorses what far-sighted leaders determine to be the right course. Propaganda is to democracy as violence is to totalitarianism. The techniques have been honed into a high art, far beyond anything Orwell dreamt of. The device of feigned dissent, incorporating the doctrines of the state religion and eliminating rational critical discussion, is one of the more subtle means, although simple lying and suppression of fact and other crude techniques are also widely used and highly effective in protecting us from knowledge and understanding of the world in which we live.
Chomsky, "Notes on Orwell's Problem," from Knowledge of Language; its origin, nature, and use. 1986. pp. 280-281
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