\nThis has led me to reflect on how ideas become dogmas, i.e., as assumed truths. And if you start thinking about this, there are all sorts of mental cobwebs produced by Abstractions, Chants, Slogans, Maxims, Heuristics, Stereotypes and other Cognitive Biases. And there is enough here to think about to fit a few books. And there are many such books — just do a Google search for “cognitive biases books.” \n<\/p>\n\n
\nThe main users of these mental manipulation techniques are those with something to sell. We know their products as propaganda and advertisement. The first book that brought this phenomenon to my attention was by Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders,<\/a> 1957. And then there was the book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent<\/a>, 1988. \n<\/p> \nThe most successful books of dogmas are, of course, religious books. For Europeans this is the Bible with its Christian companions like the Catechism of the Catholic Church.<\/a> But in the heyday of the Inquisition and the burnings of heretics, there is no greater book of evil dogmas than the Malleus Maleficarum<\/a> (1489), which gave instructions how to identify, interrogate, prosecute, and execute witches.\n<\/p>\n\n \nBut books like those of Rousseau and Locke (and of most intellectuals) do not have the same function as a procedural manual for a Catholic inquisitor. And I am confident that \nRussell is totally wrong that \u201cHitler is an outcome of Rousseau; Roosevelt and Churchill of Locke.\u201d \n<\/p> For example, here is a BBC video on Churchill’s policy in India. \n\n\n