A hard world to be ludicrous in

Kurt Vonnegut's novel Mother Night is the fictional memoirs of an American, Howard Campbell, who works as an Allied spy in Goebbel's propaganda ministry under the Third Reich. While working as a spy, he creates a good deal of propaganda for the Nazis, and a central question of the book is whether, in doing so, he did more harm than good.

At one point he writes the following, which refers to Nazism but which could just as easily apply to any religious or political system of dogmatic belief:

I had hoped, as a broadcaster, to be merely ludicrous, but this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate. So many people wanted to believe me!

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.

- Mother Night, Ch. 29