Necessary Illusions is a 1989 book by Noam Chomsky which I most likely read in 1990 or so, long before I was capable of grasping the message delivered by the book. It is subtitled “Thought Control in Democratic Societies.” I could see at that time that propaganda was a major industry, but thought we had escape chutes to exit, exist and think for ourselves. I had no idea of the degree, in 1990, of control that already existed. I would be fated to indulge in partisan politics, voting, and permitted exit chutes, Ralph Nader and Chomsky himself, for example.
I don’t have the book anymore, but won’t go looking for it. Wikipedia does a short blurb on it, comparing the phrase “necessary illusions,” which I understand to have originated with the Canadian cleric Reinhold Niebuhr, with the works of others: “noble lies” (Plato), “public relations” (Edward Bernays), and “myth making” (Machiavelli). All for our own good. We’re sheep, and need to be herded.
Piece of Mindful 