• fckreddit@lemmy.ml
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    8 hours ago

    “Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.”- Oscar Wilde.

    I think public opinion is overrated. Too many fools in the public. Just look at MAGA idiots in US.

    • Mayor Poopington@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      I believe public opinion is fairly left leaning. Just looks how popular Bernie and AOC are. It’s just that corporate media discourse is very good at suppressing left wing views.

      • NewDark@lemmings.world
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        8 hours ago

        You can describe socialist and communist policies and people generally love them. You just can’t use those thought terminating trigger words.

        • fckreddit@lemmy.ml
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          6 hours ago

          That comes from dishonest politicians and media, who twist things for their benefit. They frame certain acts like they are coming for your 2 chickens, when in reality, they are coming for a rich fucks’ 100000 chickens. Such people have a vested interest in fooling the people with 2 chickens. Hence, they campaign by equating such measures with ‘scary’ words like ‘communism’. Propaganda works. These kinds of tricks are bread and butter of advertising industry. So why not politicians and media?

          • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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            2 hours ago

            there is technique and whole ideologies and entire categories of political theory in the left all literally dedicated to taking control off oligarchs and implementing it with varying levels of irl success.

            there is more to the left of liberals and they address a bunch of these things.

      • fckreddit@lemmy.ml
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        6 hours ago

        What I mean is taking the opinion of the public seriously. I mean, people believe in a lot of weird things and that includes me. As an example, lot of people are anti-vaxxers, that doesn’t actually make vaccines dangerous. Should their opinion matter? If so, how much?

        I think the quote is meant to consider that sometimes we must ignore public opinion and do what is right. But, I agree some nuance could be lost. But sadly, the quote has no context because it is from a list of quotes Oscar Wilde wrote. Maybe, we should supply our own nuance.?

        • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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          6 hours ago

          Public opinion has a pretty big influence on who is getting voted into public offices. Ignore at your own peril.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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          5 hours ago

          Only works if you’ve got the “right” politicians in place. Right now there’s a guy in power doing just that in the US and you see what it looks like.