The Positivity of the Christian Religion by Hegel 1795

"I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology… Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called “education.” Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part… It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment.’’

Russell continued, “The subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship… The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black.”

At some point in their lives, every student of philosophy must confront the philosophers from whom they learned, to question, as Nietzsche did, whether the endless pursuit of knowledge is even worth it. One learns to hate their heroes:

"Scientific societies are as yet in their infancy… It is to be expected that advances in physiology and psychology will give governments much more control over individual mentality than they now have even in totalitarian countries. Fitche laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished… Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible…”

  • Bertrand Russell,1953

“Education in a scientific society may, I think, be best conceived after the analogy of the education provided by the Jesuits. The Jesuits provided one sort of education for the boys who were to become ordinary men of the world, and another for those who were to become members of the Society of Jesus. In like manner, the scientific rulers will provide one kind of education for ordinary men and women, and another for those who are to become holders of scientific power. Ordinary men and women will be expected to be docile, industrious, punctual, thoughtless, and contented. Of these qualities probably contentment will be considered the most important. In order to produce it, all the researches of psycho-analysis, behaviourism, and biochemistry will be brought into play.”

  • [part 3, XIV, Education in a Scientific Society p.251]

“Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished … The social psychologist of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.”

  • Bertrand Russell quoting Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the head of philosophy & psychology who influenced Hegel and others; Prussian University in Berlin, 1810.

The influence of Hegel on Marxist thought can be felt in his analysis of history. Hegel remarks that the most important and significant change in history has been the influence of Christianity. While Christian himself, his observation seems to lament this development, while Marxism surely relishes the homogenisation of nations under Christ. Hegel here echoes the point made by Marcus Eli Ravage in his ‘A Real Case Against The Jews’:

“Christianity has emptied Valhalla, felled the sacred groves, extirpated the national imagery as a shameful superstition, as a devilish poison, and given us instead the imagery of a nation whose climate, laws, culture, and interests are strange to us and whose history has no connection whatever with our own.
A David or a Solomon lives in our popular imagination, but our country’s own heroes slumber in learned history books, and, for the scholars who write them, Alexander or Caesar is as interesting as the story of Charlemagne or Frederick Barbarossa.”

  • The Positivity of the Christian Religion (1795)

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pc/ch02.htm