ExplicationIn classical Greek mythology (i.e., Homer’s Iliad) myrmidónes were commanded by Achilles during the Trojan War. According to the legend Zeus created them from a colony of ants (myrmex). Cf. Sir Francis Bacon's metaphor on ants, spiders, and bees (Novum Organum Scientiarum, 1620). Per analogiam, ants are scientists who are rule conformist followers who lack the capacity to reflect (i.e., metacognitively/epistemologically) on what they actually do. They work myopically within a given Kuhnian paradigm without asking quintessential overarching questions and, ergo, without any awareness of the bigger picture.Quotation:Even entertainment can be politically of special value, because the moment a person is conscious of propaganda, propaganda becomes ineffective. However, as soon as propaganda as a tendency, as a characteristic, as an attitude, remains in the background and becomes apparent through human beings, the propaganda becomes effective in every respect.
Joseph Goebbels, Facism and the Female Form, 1942, p.170-71