Clearly, the qualities Poles admire in a secretary of state - foreign languages, diplomatic experience, even sense of humor - are emphatically not those desired in a head of state: So be it.
Anne ApplebaumRead
One of the obsessions that the Soviet Union and the Eastern European communist parties had was always controlling the message - all information that everybody gets has to be carefully controlled and monitored. Art was no exception.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the importance of controlling information and how it extends to art under authoritarian regimes.
Anne Applebaum emphasizes the obsession of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communist parties with controlling messages and information. This desire for control extended even to the realm of art, demonstrating how authoritarian regimes seek to manipulate narratives and restrict creative expression to maintain power and influence over society.
Themes
ArtControlInformationAuthorityExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about censorship in art, you might use this quote to explain how totalitarian regimes suppress artistic freedom.
More from Anne Applebaum
All quotes →At times when people fear death, they go along with measures that they believe, rightly or wrongly, will save them - even if that means a loss of freedom. Such measures have been popular in the past.
Anne ApplebaumRead
Birtherism surely increased Americans' distrust of politics, though in ways that are hard to pin down. By contrast, when anti-vaxxers persuade parents not to vaccinate children, the result can be sickness and even death.
Anne ApplebaumRead
Quite a lot has been written, including by me, about the effect of social media on politics, and in particular the way in which the algorithms built into Facebook and YouTube are more likely to spread angry, extremist and deliberately provocative political language.
Anne ApplebaumRead
As a journalist, I know what it is like to incur the self-righteous wrath of people who denounce you for things you didn't say or didn't mean.
Anne ApplebaumRead
If we can't have a public debate because the information space is so polluted, or because people are afraid of the reactions of organized trolls, then we can't really have meaningful elections anymore, either.
Anne ApplebaumRead
Similar quotes
I taught myself how to draw, and I soon found out it was what I really wanted to do. I didn't think I was going to create any great masterpieces like Rembrandt or Gauguin. I thought comics was a common form of art, and strictly American in my estimation, because America was the home of the common man - and show me the common man that can't do a comic. So comics is an American form of art that anyone can do with a pencil and paper.
Jack KirbyRead
Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal.
Gustave CourbetRead
You know, people speak in poetry all the time. They just don't realize it.
Sherman AlexieRead
I try to let go of the intellect and just tell the story. I only read the page I have in front of me on the screen. Then when the whole story is told, I print it, wait a week and read it.
Isabel AllendeRead
Poetry is the deification of reality.
Edith SitwellRead
I'm not a politician. I don't know how to solve the problems of the world. But as an artist, I have one duty: to ask questions.
Marjane SatrapiRead