Reply #14: The Big Lie

[Mme. Defarge]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie

"The Big Lie is a propaganda technique. It was defined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf as a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".

"The phrase was also used in a report prepared during the war by the United States Office of Strategic Services in describing Hitler's psychological profile:<2>

"His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.<3>

"George Orwell's novel 1984 refers to the Big Lie theory on several occasions. For example:

"To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed . . ." <5>"