I'd like to see more content about indoctrination and propaganda happening in US education. This to me is much more insidious as it takes an impressionable populace (kids and young adults) and provides an authority figure (teachers and professors) that are largely hidden from public view and gives them a lot of room to provide whatever narrative they like about politics, history, or just about any subject.
The impact of shouting matches happening on cable news and Twitter seem like a rounding error compared to the decades-long indoctrination that happens during one's education.
Student have over a dozen teachers over the course of education. If they "provide whatever narrative they like " it seems students would get a diverse range of perspectives. Not to mention all the perspectives they get from other authorities like their churches, clubs, family members, and... every adult they encounter, and every book too.
I think it is a grave injustice to children to, for example, not introduce them to a variety of religions so that they can better understand folks they might run into. Same for not having comprehensive sex education: It matters little to me that a parent thinks some sex - or birth control - is a sin: The child still needs to learn about it so that they can make good decisions even if it goes against the parents' beliefs. Some parents want girls to just learn to cook and clean, and demand an emphasis on such classes.
And so on.
I'm not convinced it is entirely your right to do as you please with your children: To me, it is only OK so long it is healthy for the child and doesn't infringe on their rights... which they should have, and the US refuses to give.
Sure, children will encounter a diverse range of ideas. Schooling dominates in time spent with, and it is the one most likely to reward or punish a child for regurgitating an ideology.
[1] Age of American Unreason
Dangerous History Podcast with Prof CJ https://profcj.org/ep124/
"Ever get the sense that the government and politics in the United States is kinda cult-y? If so, CJ thinks your spidey sense is justifiably tingling, and what you’re picking up on is the phenomenon known as the civil religion.
Join CJ as he discusses:
The concept of civil religion
The origins of the American civil religion, and a brief word on the scholarship on the concept
Some of the overtly religious elements that can be found in American government and politics, including: dogmas, rituals, sacred texts, holy places, sermons, sacrifices, sacred days, spells/mantras/incantations/prayers, music, sacred histories/narratives, temples, symbols/totems, priests, and saints
The ways in which people of different cultural and ideological predilections can — just like with conventional religion — interpret the civil religion in order to make it fit their preferences
How voting fits into this civil religion, and why CJ thinks a reasonable person should reject the civil religion — whether they are theists or not
Sort of. Social media feeds and ads are ephemeral and customized to the specific user. This makes transparency hard, unless the network provides access.
I find the entire formula to be a groundwork for severe social damage. It certainly does not build bridges. Nor does it pave the way towards compassion and understanding.
Critical Race Theory isn’t applied in K-12 schools (at least not as a thing that is taught, it can certainly inform education policy and approaches to policymaking), nor has anyone proposed teaching it there, and anything you’ve read about it being taught there is a complete and utter fabrication for propaganda purposes.
> teaches youth that they are inherently racist (note this is only taught to the white children)
CRT doesn't include the idea that people are inherently racist, and is, indeed, an outgrowth of critical legal studies and shares CLS’s focus on institutional rather than personal forces. People being racist is largely outside the focus of CRT, which is centrally about how social institutions can be racist, often independently or even contrary to the values of the people currently comprising the institutions.
The anti-anti-racists have been claiming people advocating against racism are teaching white children that they are inherently racist long before they attributed that to CRT. CRT has just been adopted as the new buzzword to which anti-anti-racists apply their standard arguments, just as “cancel culture” recently became the label to which all the arguments that the Right had been tieing to “political correctness” since the 1980s became attached.
The irony of you bringing this up in the context of propaganda is amusing.
There's a good short interview NPR did today with Gloria Ladson-Billings, who has been working on applying critical race theory for education policy for over a couple of decades: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/22/1009182206/academic-who-broug...
Be careful out there. There's a lot of propaganda out there.
And its hard to argue with the result. Whatever is going on, that particular strain of "crt" is virulently spreading.
The NPR interview doesn't really say anything interesting or new to me. All of it applies to The Culture of Critique too. Putting whether these theories are actually true aside for a moment, my point is that if you are opposed to teaching children something like CofC then you should be opposed to CRT as well.
To illustrate my point better, let's take the CNN article on what CRT is: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/01/us/critical-race-theory-e...
Here is how CRT is defined, which isn't exactly the most charitable definition of CRT I've ever read, and it frankly sounds completely terrible, but just to demonstrate a point:
> Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most people of color, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits White elites.
Now let's change some races around:
> Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most White people, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits Jewish elites.
And this is roughly the conclusion CofC reaches too. So honest question, assuming you can come up with something to substantiate this claim (to keep the discussion simple), would you also be fine with this? Just in principle.
Whether CRT is right/wrong is another issue altogether...but it's just another lens on a very old behavior trait of species that have survived over long periods of time.
and on the other side, i witnessed what the chicago public school system says to the kids (remote learning) and holy shit. it was like something from 1984. gotta start preparing us to not own anything and like it some time…..
"As Media Matters has previously noted, Fox News’ current obsession with “critical race theory” has been a year in making. What once was a slow trickle of monthly mentions has developed into a full blown assault. Since February, month over month mentions of the theory have more than doubled on Fox News as the network has begun to spin an illusion of what it is and where it’s being taught (in reality, critical race theory is not generally taught in K-12). Coverage of the theory sharply increased in March, with 107 mentions on the network according to data from Kinetiq media monitoring service. The following month, network figures and guests mentioned it 226 times, and by May, the number had increased to 537 mentions. Not even halfway through June, there’s already been 408 mentions on the network.
Just last week, Fox mentioned “critical race theory” a record 244 times -- an increase from the previous record high of 170 mentions the week before."
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-has-mentioned-crit...
But - CRT in it's applied form ultimately turns into 'propaganda' and there should be some legislative parameters around it.
The basic CRT premise of 'Minorities who live in Majority Culture are suppressed in systematic ways, and that we should be more sensitive to that and it's historical impact' ... is definitely fair.
So there's a legit grounding in aspects of CRT.
If that were it, then then this would be a good thing.
But the rhetorical application of CRT gets pretty vicious, pretty quickly, and it turns to the language of 'race war' almost instantly.
In particular, using terminology such as 'White Supremacy' which is normally associated with 'Men in White Pointy Hats' as purposefully toxic language, the tactic of castigating anyone who doesn't support their cause as 'upholding White Supremacy' and therefore racism etc. are common.
Controversial foundational elements such as rejecting liberal and enlightenment values (literally objective truth) in favour of one's own 'realized or expressed truth' in addition to issues such as rejecting the foundation of the written word etc..
There's been a few debates here on HN, but there is documentation from school boards on 'how the teaching of Math upholds White Supremacy' because it ostensibly implies 'linear thinking', 'predicate knowledge' and other artifacts of supposed 'White Supremacy'. The response to this particularly bad form of CRT on HN usually comes in the form of discounting classical teaching pedagogy as being possibly too 'stifled' - but that has absolutely nothing to do with race and there is no evidence whatsoever to back it up. In reality - certain groups (Hispanics, Blacks) do poorly, and other groups - including minorities/people of colour (Whites, Asians) do just fine under the same pedagogy and what's more likely is that kids who show up for class, who have good parents, who want to learn etc. (i.e. the obvious things) do just fine. CRT 'in practice' in this situation is unsubstantiated, anti-scientific, anti-progressive ideological rubbish in making excuses for kids who don't do well in math. It's 'good intentions run ideologically wild'.
Last week a New Jersey school board opted to remove the names of all holidays from their calendar and replace them with just 'Holiday'. This one is actually a pretty good example of the intersection of CRT and the effete values of school administrators: July 4, Easter, Memorial Day are just 'too controversial' for our kids to be exposed to, therefore, we'll just mark them as 'Holiday'.
That to me represents a kind of ideological 'crossing of the line': if our educators are interested in making sure kids hear about slavery and segregation, that seems reasonable. Important, actually. But erasing civic holidays because of concerns of CRT is I think 'radical', and there are people in every school board in America who would like to follow suit and CRT gives them basically the impetus to 'Be on the right side of history' (in their view) despite the 'Ugly, angry, overtly traditional parents' (again view of the teachers).
There's a little bit of a postmodern aspect to CRT - it's a 'turning inside out' kind of ideology, allowing adherents to basically refute anything and everything part of he 'conventional narrative' and replace it with ... well whatever they want. This is what makes it scary.
CRT has some valid intellectual underpinnings, but it ends up being like ugly Red Hat Trumpism for the Left. I actually support some aspects of it but I have no trust in the education system to use it responsibly.
Unfortunately, I think the 'sides' are talking past each other I don't see any consensus developing just yet.
EDIT: curious about the opinions of anyone who down voted this.
What evidence do you have that it is happening and on what scale?
My teachers, all that I recall, never presented any opinion or perspective as truth. It was always about thinking critically for ourselves. If, for example, they presented a well-established view on the sinking of the Maine, it was as material for our analysis and evaluation.
Set aside for a moment the very fair questions one can ask about the trustworthiness of these images. Ignore for now whether this was shown to 5 or 5000 eductors, etc.
Let's just assume such instructions were in fact given to educators on some non-negligible scale.
Would that be evidence enough for you?
IMHO, and pertinent to the OP: That is out of textbook of how mis- and disinformation impacts human thinking: Observe something emotionally provocative and follow the urge to dive in, regardless of the reality: 'What if it's true???" I've trained myself not to do it.
I'm always interested in valuable, credible information. (And to be clear, it's not your job to educate me - that's my job - but it is your job to backup what you say.)
> slides circulating on Twitter
Is there any place where amount of propaganda is greater, in the history of the world, than on social media such as Twitter? It must be orders of magnitude beyond anything ever. Serious question: Why are you reading it? It's like digging through a garbage dump for coins.
If you are actually looking for some eyewitness accounts, Jordan Peterson has many podcasts where he interviews specific people that have experienced the ideological takeover themselves, including:
* Yeonmi Park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yqa-SdJtT4
* Dr. Rima Azar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIw8mH7ZpFY
* Bret Weinstein: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O_gW4VWZ5c
He has also interviewed one person who lost his job fighting the takeover in high school:
* Paul Rossi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysQBegyQP8A
He's also interviewed a self-identified liberal and former employee of New York Times that witnessed the takeover at the Times. Starting at minute 8 the conversation diverges into talking about her experience at University.
* Bari Weiss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFTA9MJZ4KY&t=12s
Bari Weiss says it herself in this podcast, loosely quoted since I don't remember it exactly: If you as a liberal can't see the danger in what is happening, then you have your blinders on.
I would say the same holds true of people who can't see the takeover in education, which is already mostly complete.
Edit: I found the Bari Weiss quote at 43:06: "I have to be honest. At this point, if one can't see the way that this language has been hijacked and used as a kind of trojan horse strategy to smuggle in a hardened, zero-sum identity politics view of the world, to smuggle in a view of the world in which we have collective guilt or collective innocence literally based on the circumstances of our birth, that smuggle in a deeply anti-capitalist position, to smuggle in essentially a leftist illiberalism, then, I'm sorry. You have blinders on! The evidence is so overwhelming at this point.... I think it's because admitting that's true, is extremely psychologically scary, and socially scary, if you are a liberal."
> radicals have already successfully overtaken Western universities
Ironically, this uses techniques from the OP. It's an emotional appeal - calling people radicals, catastrophizing, etc. - but there's no evidence and really no information. Hyperbole eliminates information; it's like screaming 'we're all going to die!'.
This is one of my favorite YouTube videos. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KewaCcYF9nY
All media is owned by probably 5 people....but the general population eats that shit up and seems to get offended if you inform them of that.
I think it heavily depends on what media you see. The best journalism generally avoids it (i.e., the straight news side). Most journalism isn't in the top few percentile, but you don't need to read anything less than the best. I stick to the best, and when I encounter lesser stuff (e.g., I was visiting relatives and CNN was on TV), it's shocking and depressing how obviously bad it is. (BTW, one good source I discovered on that trip: BBC World News television - actually excellent cable news!)
But the opinion pages of even the best news sources (e.g., NY Times, Wall St Journal) are 99% exercises in propaganda; it almost defines opinion in the news. It's disgusting to me that they brazenly deceive their readers, but it's ok because it says 'opinion'.
However, where I see propaganda far more is online, not in the news media. I see it comments and blog posts, etc., including in this forum, sadly. The focus on the professional news media is odd to me; and in fact, and ironically, de-legitimizing the professional news media is a widespread propaganda campaign from a specific political grouping.
By nature of their primary funding source (a "tax" levied on those who watch TV in the UK through the government, which thus controls their purse strings), they tend to be very soft on whoever the governing party is, especially at present. For one, Laura Kuenssberg, their political editor, has had a lot of allegations of bias against the current opposition party, some of which have been upheld in enquiries. She's also ended up serving as an unofficial mouthpiece for leaks from the conservative party on a number of occasions, parroting party talking points uncritically.
It was the very definition of propaganda: clearly biased, obviously wrong to anybody who has the slightest idea about finance and obviously working hard to push a foregone conclusion against an imagined enemy ("The Rich").
To my dismay, mainstream media, including the BBC, picked up the story as if it was anything else than bad journalism, thus offering it credibility. Because as flawed as it was, it served their cause.
That repeats what a blog post on HN's front page said, but that doesn't make it true. It was the blog poster who didn't understand finance, as many on HN commented, and their argument was weak in many other ways. Also, the conclusion about ProPublica's motives has no evidence - even if the article is inaccurate in that way, there are many possible reasons why. It's an appeal to emotion when we start saying "the slightest idea", "obviously", and "imagined enemy", not to fact and reason.
Even the allegations don't necessarily fit the definition of propaganda; bias or even deceit are not necessarily propaganda.
Why are people so ready to believe that a carefully researched story, rich in evidence, is wrong and take at face value a ranting blog post, with no evidence or research, by some anonymous person?
The answer is, that is how propaganda works: An appeal to emotion, and many other tactics described in the OP, were in that blog post. That is killing our society, IMHO.
There is obviously some overlap. Propaganda is inherently opinionated and basic communication techniques used to convey any story of course also work with propaganda.
This is not about differences of opinion. It's about whether the population is allowed to have an independent opinion at all.
In the US it simply isn't. There's a gigantic shrieking fog-horn of pro-corporate anti-democratic extremism on one side, and a smaller but more shrill progressive air horn on the other.
Between those two it's very hard to debate anything on its merits. Most positions are tribally one-vs-the-other, wrapped in triggering rhetoric and imagery, and powered by stock cut-and-paste memes, opinions, and predigested talking points.
None of that is about communication.
There are reasons for all of this. Some are reasonable, some are toxic. But that's a different issues.
It doesn't change the fact that propaganda is the default media mode in the US - not just in the mainstream media and in advertising, but also in the form of the interactions and quality of relationship that are typically promoted on social media.
My point (in response to the parent comment stating that 90% of all "mainstream media" is propaganda) is that the assertion "90% of mainstream media is propaganda" seems to be stretching the definition of propaganda from the reasonable one which you have brought up to something more like "propaganda is rhetoric to promote beliefs".
To me, that original comment seems to be more similar to weaponized rhetoric (in this case, designed to promote the belief that "mainstream" media is untrustworthy) than to earnest communication or expression of opinion.
It's pretty ambiguous: Where do you draw the line between them, and what evidence do you have about their relative reliability. The professional journalism I see, e.g. news sections in established newspapers, is far more accurate and honest than the non-mainstream stuff I see.
The article: "Propaganda is information (delivered through any medium) designed to persuade, manipulate emotion, and change opinion rather than to inform using logical truths and facts."
The dictionary: "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view."
Not at all. In fact, effective propaganda will have its targets repeating it explicitly and internalizing it as a frame to other things. If nobody did that, propaganda wouldn't matter.
Especially regarding implicit bias. Implicit bias is specifically distinct from "regular" bias because is not deliberate and lacks intent.
This, I believe, is so important to living in the modern era of constant information and media consumption at our fingertips. Reading (or even participating in) arguments online is one thing I see a lot of. Tons of emotional responses with plenty of bias and assumptions being made. But those are pretty easy to avoid if you just don't get yourself involved and watch from the sidelines. Good arguments where both sides are participating in open discussion with facts, logic, and open minds are a pleasure. It's what drew me to HN years ago.
What isn't easy to avoid (at least for me), is the propaganda being regurgitated by those around me. One side of my family is very deep into conspiracy thinking. They have zero trust for the media, other than a single outlet which they listen and watch every day. When I see this side of the family, I listen to what they have to say, but they don't seem to have any taste for logic, facts, or reasoning. Open discussion is off the table unless it caters to what they want to hear or already believe. Any evidence to the contrary is dismissed and not believed. It seems to me like there is no way to get through to them, no way to open their minds, no way to propose viable alternatives to their thinking.
How does one go about opening the minds of those already deeply influenced by propaganda? I have their trust, they still come to me and voice their ideas, however farfetched they may seem. Even if they know I don't believe them, they still open discussion with me. But I cannot seem to find a way to engage in their arguments while involving reasoning.
p.s. This became a rant, but I do want to improve the communication between myself and this side of the family. I don't want to (and can't really) just cut them off, they are nice people that just happen to have some wild beliefs.
Some part of their brain knows that what they're into is deeply flawed but ultimately only they themselves can find their way out.
Maybe you can checkout their single source of information, and make them promise to checkout the other side too...
Both will benefit from checking out alternate sources that opine opposite to our current biases.
We will disagree with most of them, but then, one can basically find out what is factually true or not from a simple comparison, see which facts have been omitted in the reporting, and then make up their minds.
- understand that in the others minds you are the one deeply influenced by propaganda.
- try to create a bridge, something you can a agree on.
- if the other person is a logical thinker you might apply to that. Even when you don't know who or what to trust you can go a step further. Example: The two identical twins in the intersection, one always lies, one always tells the truth. You need to know the way to Rome but you can only ask one question.
- be aware that sometimes it might be you who should cross the bridge. I've already done so anf it feels great afterwards.
They trust you, they trust this source.
State the idea that you want them to believe, and then back it up with a manufactured argument from this source they trust.
They won't remember if it was ever said. They just know that they trust you, and they trust your source.
Use this power responsible.
https://www.agloa.org/prop-docs/ See linked PDFs.
More info:
>"Propaganda is information (delivered through any medium) designed to persuade, manipulate emotion, and change opinion rather than to inform using logical truths and facts. The aim of propaganda is to change minds via the use of emotion, misinformation, disinformation, truths, half-truths, and cleverly selected facts; not to enlighten (although one can technically propagandize true information, using emotion to sell truth, this generally isn’t what we are talking about when we use the term “propaganda”
Then saying this...
>Propaganda isn’t bad by its nature (after-all, almost any content that relays information can be considered a form of propaganda).
What the fuck. No, any content that relays information is NOT a form of propaganda.
Except... that's the literal meaning of propaganda (it's literally Italian for "propagation"). It's only in the Cold War era (only relatively recently in the time-span of history) that "propaganda" have added that negative connotation.
And even then you're wrong, you have to go back much earlier to find the shift in definition of the term. The negative connotation that led to our modern definition originated in the French Revolution, not the Cold War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda#cite_ref-13
> Academic Barbara Diggs-Brown conceives that the negative connotations of the term “propaganda” are associated with the earlier social and political transformations that occurred during the French Revolutionary period movement of 1789 to 1799 between the start and the middle portion of the 19th century, in a time where the word started to be used in a nonclerical and political context.
Before the French Revolution the term was used by the Catholic church and was considered "an ancient and honorable term".
https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-hist...
WWI & II made the modern definition we know today popular, but both the American and French revolution guided it there.
Also "Name Calling" is a form of "Ad Hominem".
And why is "using quotes" higher up than "reasoning and supporting evidence"?
Also, isn't the entire pyramid about the level of counter argument? So, contradiction is inherent in the process. It really seems like "Counteragrument", "Refutation", and "Refuting the central point" are all about the same thing. And if they are different then "Refutation" and "Counterargument" are ordered wrong. Because I think using reasoning and supporting evidence would be stronger than quotes.
So, really, this pyramid could be like 4 layers. Ad-hominem, Tone Policing, Simple Contradiction, Counter Argument
Is it a shortcut? Yes. But as the blogpost points out, misinformation spreads far more quickly than truth. Its easier to shortcut and label certain outlets as propaganda channels, to help focus the discussion on the few channels which are reliable (Associated Press is good and neutral, and mainly factual)
It doesn't tell me anything about the other side and tells me more about you. You don't like the other side. That's what I now know.
And misinformation usually has one of the problems that would put it further down the pyramid than actual arguments. It's usually ad hominem or tone policing itself. Or sometimes just a straight up lie.
And pointing out those elements would fall under Counter Argument.
Not everything negative is ad hominem.
And that's very useful for establishing which sources we should rely upon in a shared discussion.
My sister's husband was quoting Breitbart news to me. I let him know that I believed that was a propaganda channel. In many discussions, its very important to establish who is, or isn't, a trusted source of information.
-------------
There are others who quote Elon Musk's tweets to me. Many of those tweets have no basis in reality IMO, so I let them know that I don't trust them, and I ask them for another source of information.
Don't think they really care about left or right, they use politics as a vehicle to keep the masses divided and therefore under control. It also shifts focus away from the growing class gap and how the upper classes are hoarding wealth.
[1] I also learned that they spell it "Brasil" here.
Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M
For insight into how it works, I prefer the more systematic approach of "Propaganda Principles"[1] to the linked site, however.
https://propagandaprinciples.wordpress.com/propaganda-techni...
This is usually interpreted as presenting only half of a story, but the more common and powerful use is in presenting the whole story, while simply ignoring unfavorable stories, and promoting favorable ones. Is a murder front-page news, or a footnote? Depends on the murder.
Respectable outlets have to generally tell the 'truth'.
But - they can chose the stories they want to highlight, and leave out facts entirely.
A neat example I like to use is the CBC's coverage of the 'trail of tears' story - which is the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous women from the 1960's to 2000, about 3000 went missing, somewhat higher than the norm. for Canada.
What they never highlight in coverage, is that 1) about 8500 Aboriginal Men went missing during the same time and 2) that almost universally, the assailants in attacks against against Aboriginal Women are in fact, Aboriginal Men.
When I bring up the facts, which I had to research myself - people seemed to be shocked and dismayed as though 'Men's deaths don't matter' - just because they happen to be a part of a group where others are committing violence, and, that somehow the fact that the violence seems to be entirely focused within the community is 'of no concern'.
In reality, most CBC watchers (Canadians) would be enlightened by the fact 'even more' Aboriginal men are dying that they deserve our sympathy in that regard, and especially that the troubles are focused within the community which is incredibly relevant because it helps inform solutions.
Imagine growing up and spending 25 years being exposed to '1/2 truths' like this?
It's surprisingly more common than not in many media outlets covering anything remotely sensitive to the point where I've developed a 'Spidey Sense' and frankly spend only 1 minute on Google to uncover highly relevant facts that should have likely been included.
I feel that this kind of thing is more important than the nature of propaganda highlighted in the article, because for the most part, classical propaganda is not nearly as common as those presenting a form of 'leaning bias' on sensitive issues.
The Government isn't very good at most propaganda these days, and I think we all know that Corporate advertising is 'propaganda' at least by this definition. We are mostly not aware of how consistent the bias is in the press, and how narratives are created there, which is why maybe it deserves more scrutiny.
Many books have been written about ‘influence’ and other soft power methods. They are a waste of time. In the real world, consent is manufactured by prescribing rewards and punishments. It’s entirely behavioral.
Examples abound. Think of everything you ‘know’, which you have examined zero primary source evidence of, but would have failed a primary school class if you didn’t ‘know’ it. This continues well into adult life and work. The actual truth, or even the actual attitudes and beliefs, are irrelevant. Behavioral consent methods work flawlessly without any requirement to convince the subject.
This is the real secret of propaganda. It’s all you need to know. It works because you don’t have a choice.
It works like this:
A. You believe X.
B. A crazy person also believes/believed X.
C. You are a crazy person.
D. Optionally: I won't consider your argument unless you tell me why being a crazy person is ok. Why do you support doing crazy people things like being a serial killer?
Example:
A. You are against cigarette smoking.
B. The Nazis were also against cigarette smoking[2].
C. Therefore you are a Nazi.
D. Optionally: I won't consider your argument unless you tell me why being a Nazi is ok. Why do you support anti-semitism?
This is by far the most common bullshit argument I get when talking with people about controversial topics.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy#Guilt_by_a...
[2]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251213.The_Nazi_War_on_C...
Police are saying that person who is obviously crazy and did <bad thing> also happened to believe in X.
Coming up. A special report where we look at all the crazy people who believe X.
Did <historical bad guy> believe in X? Find out next as we explore history.
Should the statue of historical person be removed because he believed X?
And so on and so forth.
But it's not really propaganda.
One of the problems with HN (don't hate me Dang) is that we aren't permitted to call out propaganda as this article suggests we do. It all happens behind the scenes and as a result, its inherently unseen. It needs to be seen. We almost needs a wall of shame for groups/orgs caught engaging in PR.
I have to disagree, propaganda is bad, as its aim isn't to inform, but to manipulate through dishonesty.
The article's core purpose is to describe manipulative and insincere propaganda strategies so that the reader learns defenses against these strategies. This is very much in line with the negative definition of propaganda, and not just the very general "propagate information" definition.
That's a narrow view of propaganda. You can manipulate through honesty as well.
Think about it like this. Parents manipulate their children all the time to make them do things they don't want to do. They do not do it honestly, but it certainly it not perceived a societal harm despite inherent dishonesty.
[0] Quoting the article, “The art of propaganda is not telling lies, but rather selecting the truth you require and giving it mixed up with some truths the audience wants to hear.”
As to misrepresenting information, the same subset of information could be seen as fair by one group and misrepresentation by another group.
What matters is the purpose of the activity. If one consistently spreads selective information from which one stands to gain in terms of money or power, I’d say that’s a problem, whether you call it propaganda or not. On the other hand, other types of selective information we could call “propaganda” (e.g., anti-drug or pro-savings commercials) might actually be beneficial to the society.
1. Most effective communication is "propaganda"
As outlined in "Thinking Fast and Slow" (and in numerous other places), there are two ways of thinking: the quick instinctive "gut," and the slow, considered, logical mind. People, especially the kind of people that read HN, tend to deify the latter and villainize the former, but the truth is both have value. Furthermore, the "gut" actually has MORE value overall, since being able to sit down and carefully consider every aspect of a situation or concept is a luxury that is often impractical.
"Propaganda" is simply anything that speaks to this instinctive mind. Sales is propaganda. Dating/pursuing someone is propaganda. Trying to get a child to calm down when they're afraid or angry is propaganda. People sneer at making "emotional appeals" and appealing to "base instincts," but the reality is that humans spend most of their time living in world of emotion and instinct, not fact. Speaking to the instinctive mind is a more effective way to persuade someone, because the instinctive mind has more power in most people. That doesn't make it inherently bad. Talking directly to a person's "gut" is simple effective communication, which can be used for good or bad end.
2. Logic is a luxury, not a silver bullet
Almost every discussion of this topic inevitably frames it the same way: there are dark, sinister forces using "propaganda" to manipulate the vulnerable, and we must fight back by teaching people to think logically! Elevate yourself above base instinct, see everything with the cool remove of a Vulcan, and you will triumph, in yourself, and in winning arguments with others.
The reality is that the world, and people, don't work like this. Logic, reason and facts are not trump cards. Quite the opposite: they require a cool, friendly and reserved setting to work, and are thus mostly useless in any situation other than one between friends that mutually respect and understand each other.
The language of most of humanity, most of the time, is "propaganda," ie an appeal to instinct. Victory doesn't lie in trying to stomp this out like a Victorian trying to purge their sex drive, but rather in accepting it, understanding it, in yourself and others, and learning to speak in its language. Careful rational thinking is great, we wouldn't have all the advancements we do without it. But most people don't spend their free time reading research papers. They watch movies or TV, or play video games. Some even still read books.
Stop treating "propaganda" as a dark tool of the evil one. Bad guys use what works, and speaking to instinct works. If you want to fight them (and more importantly, to just lead a richer life) learn to do the same.
My understanding is that experts consider the aim of propaganda to be confusing and paralyzing the enemy, preventing effective communication, debate and decision-making.
For example, after 2016, the widespread, hyper-inflammatory trolling and attacks prevented the discussion of politics. Many forums I know, including HN to an extent, simply banned it. To this day, many issues are very difficult to discuss (e.g., Trump, racism, etc.); you can't share information, discuss things, because the discussions seem to blow up (and even mentioning that those issues exist might provoke something here - please don't). That's effective propaganda.
It's not clear to me that the author has real knowledge of propaganda beyond their own observations and theories. There is a lot of better research and knowledge out there.
https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/ijoc-political-communication-comput...
bummer.
The bit about Putin's propaganda guy is super interesting, as what he's doing makes complete sense within other frameworks. The advantage these propagandists have is they believe one simple thing and it's very easy to signal, operationalize, and organize around. It's basically nihilism.
The article does get a couple things wrong e.g.:
> Big Lie: Using a complex array of events to justify an action or narrative. What you do is take a carefully selected collection of truths, lies, and half-truths that all seem to tell a story (which is actually revised history) and use them to construct a story that eventually supplants the public’s accurate perception of the underlying events.
The Big Lie tactic is (as I remember reading in Cialdini, maybe?) something necessarily absurd like Kim Jong Il hitting 11 consecutive hole-in-one shots on a golf course, where if you can't contain your disgust at how absurd that sounds, and you have some sense of self where it is offensive for you to believe it, you mark yourself out for isolation and attack. The Big Lie is primarily a tactic to get people to react, and the people whose identities are still anchored to truth are potential resistance leaders, so this lets them paint themselves as targets. It's also called a "wedge issue," and is the complementary tactic to dogwhistles and watchwords. It is also close to a "scissor statement," which is a statement that only has polarized and opposing interpretations. (HN thread on scissor statements: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190508)
There are also some standard sales and negotiation tactics thrown in there, and oddly, some of their own tactics to create a slant are written into it.
However, the goal of a propagandist is to hold your attention and it doesn't matter what you actually think, because as long as the propagandist has your attention, you are passified by their noise and not acting against them or in your own interest. Arguing the logic or principles? Engaged. Outraged? Engaged. Have a side? Engaged. Ditched family and friends over politics? Engaged. The job of a propagandist is to manage your attention and make the stories you tell yourself the ones they taught you, they don't actually care what you think, only that above all you do nothing, and so small squads of less than 10 people at a time can seem to control entire cities.
The best filter against propaganda is attitude. The question, "how do I benefit if they are wrong?" goes a long way to establishing the necessary personal boundaries that keep you from spending too much time mesmerized. Having an axiomatic truth as a co-ordinate or waypoint for who you are prevents you from being completely submerged by narrative. Deflecting arguments helps as well because they are mainly bait for a tarpit, and as Dale Carnigie said, "nobody wins an argument." If your reaction to something is angry or excitable, you are downstream of someone trying to get inside your head.
Anyway, it's a good and important article on a pet topic, so my advice for dealing with propaganda is: it's your attention they want, only ever give it on your own terms.
pretty painful trying to read the rest of the article after this as the author clearly sees certain kinds of propaganda as objective good.
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