Usage in Hitler's Psychological Profile
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:
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.
However, according to Michael C. Moynihan (Sept. 7, 2012) in Tablet Magazine, it has become common in contemporary US politics to criticize an opponent for being guilty of using the idea of the Big Lie. Moynihan's main point there is that it is misleading and incorrect to imply that any such opponent is therefore somehow "similar to" or "analogous to" (hint: think "as bad as") either Hitler or Goebbels. ("See also" Godwin's law.)
Read more about this topic: Big Lie
Famous quotes containing the words usage, hitler and/or profile:
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“What the hell is nostalgia doing in a science-fiction film? With the whole universe and all the future to play in, Lucas took his marvelous toys and crawled under the fringed cloth on the parlor table, back into a nice safe hideyhole, along with Flash Gordon and the Cowardly Lion and Luck Skywalker and the Flying Aces and the Hitler Jugend. If there’s a message there, I don’t think I want to hear it.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“Actor: Electrician, a little more this way with that spotlight. What are you trying to do, ruin my profile?
Electrician: Your profile was ruined the day you were born.”
—James Gleason (1886–1959)