Yeah, it's a feature. If anything, its a basement bargain feature. For any large system, indoctrination early and often is the best way for systemic change.

We already see it with the modern surveillance state, post 9-11 the US citizenry has lost so many freedoms and if you ask random people on the street about it they would be perplexed. Hell, even my friends give me a bit of the "ahh so this is your conspiracy theory" look when I mention them. Growing up through 9-11 and the forever war was pretty dystopian, or at least a March into the dystopia's that I only read about in books.