Philosophy Now Forum

Although the States may exemplify the problem, this thread is not about the American crap.

It’s about propaganda, people and politics.

I see no practical cure for propaganda once it has come into play. Even possible preventive measures do not seem to be effective at curtailing propaganda in its infancy.

Am I missing something? Is there something that can be done to dampen the damage propaganda can do to a population or its government? Is there a style of government that can defend itself against propaganda? Can media defeat propaganda? Can education do it? Is it a matter of money?

School me with your thoughts.

google for utopia

-Imp

commonsense wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 6:56 pm Although the States may exemplify the problem, this thread is not about the American crap.

It’s about propaganda, people and politics.

I see no practical cure for propaganda once it has come into play. Even possible preventive measures do not seem to be effective at curtailing propaganda in its infancy.

Am I missing something? Is there something that can be done to dampen the damage propaganda can do to a population or its government? Is there a style of government that can defend itself against propaganda? Can media defeat propaganda? Can education do it? Is it a matter of money?

School me with your thoughts.

"Beauty" itself is a kind of 'propaganda' given it attracts us to prefer paying attention to them over another without such qualities. I don't think that politics has a logical fixed solution because we are evolved to use perception as a means to decide seek or evade environmental realities that are relatively unpredictable to the rest of the cells of our body that our consciousness serves.

At best, I think if the formal logic and science were taught early on, we might at least have the tools needed to notice when or where propaganda or rhetoric is being used to manipulate us. I think we could make laws now that restrict 'legal' lying, but business benefits most when its consumers are relatively 'unintelligent' and 'emotionally affective'. So animals, in general, rely on desiring 'truth' where it serves us but we simultaneously admonish those who have blind faith in us, even if untrue or relatively deceptive.

I don't have faith that we COULD find any ideal way to rule out propaganda. Note that propaganda does not imply that it is 'false' either. One can use the skills of rhetoric as a means to contribute an emotional (or 'motivational') prerequisite to action. We are first and foremost emotional beings with priority. I know that even the nature of a bad scent is enough to turn me away from someone I find extremely attractive. That is a kind of 'negative propaganda' that doesn't even require intent.

So, unfortunately, there is no preventing propaganda. The right-wing politicians tend to default a presumption that everyone lies, cheats, and uses rhetoric to achieve one's intended ends (and at any means for many). Given this political ideal exits for those who have something to conserve (from being taken away or 'taxed' from), then at least those more powerful will continue to use propaganda tactics regardless. As such, the education factor -- for logic and science most specifically -- can at least give people better odds at making these tactics less effective. If enough people cannot be influenced effectively this way, then those who noramally prefer to use it would require to diminish its use other than as an addition to some logical argument.

commonsense wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 6:56 pm Although the States may exemplify the problem, this thread is not about the American crap.

It’s about propaganda, people and politics.

I see no practical cure for propaganda once it has come into play. Even possible preventive measures do not seem to be effective at curtailing propaganda in its infancy.

Am I missing something? Is there something that can be done to dampen the damage propaganda can do to a population or its government? Is there a style of government that can defend itself against propaganda? Can media defeat propaganda? Can education do it? Is it a matter of money?

School me with your thoughts.

To be propagandized is to be conditioned by an outside force. Presence of awareness is the antidote to conditioning and fuels the mindfulness that, like the axis of a spinning top, is the stillness around which experience swirls, and is the vantage point for observing everything that is going on with you right now, and why. This reveals the presence of propaganda, and awareness of propaganda eventually eliminates its conditioning power.

Could education and practice in critical thinking reach the average pupil?

Will only the elite be able to recognize propaganda?

commonsense wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 4:56 pm Could education and practice in critical thinking reach the average pupil?

Will only the elite be able to recognize propaganda?

What sort of elite is immune to propaganda? Nobody has the skills to realise all the myths they are being fed. Even muths about elites who secretly run things are propaganda too.

Look at Wakler, he has spent the last couple of weeks regurgitating a pile of disinformation about electoral fraud, he even brought up that Kraken bullshit that only a complete moron would believe, yet he's right there in the post above yours riffing about how there are techniques to master which reveal the presence of lies. There is no doubt that he believes he has mastered those, and that he will dismiss me as the victim of hoaxes and of lies told by an elite.

And he'll be at least partially right to do so, we're all subject to stories about history and archetypes. We all believe a certain number of fairy tales, so we all fall for a certain amount of propaganda. If you think you can train that out of people, then that's just some propaganda you constructed.

Some people of course are easy marks for any old stupid shit though. Like the time Nick_A actually fell for a stupid story about Dearborn Michigan being under Sharia Law, and then just excused himself under the pretence that it was somehow difficult to spot as a hoax. Training that out of people isn't a matter of critical thinking, there are some chunks of propaganda that nobody is stupid enough not to spot unless they actively suspend disbelief entirely. That's not a matter of critical thinking to me, it's more of a mental health issue. But it's that QAnon level of insane frothing swivel eyed rabid bullshittery that seems to be the current problem.

I didn’t expect positive answers to any of my questions, but I was hopeful that someone might have an insight I hadn’t thought about.

You have to expect such digressions from one with rent-free ghosts living in the noggin. Hang in there. As common sense, you of course know that someone could well offer what resonates.

I’ll continue to wait.

with google, facebook and twitter among other social "media" censoring your thoughts and allowing only leftist tripe to be shown, utopia isn't far behind...

think for yourself? you don't even think.

governmental gods are double plus good

obey

-Imp

commonsense wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 6:56 pm I see no practical cure for propaganda once it has come into play. Even possible preventive measures do not seem to be effective at curtailing propaganda in its infancy.

Preventive measures might be quite effective - only, we can't go back in time and stop something before it began. Propaganda didn't begin in our lifetime, or in our civilization; it's a tool with a history as long as civilization, and it's been far more effective than force in directing the actions of large groups of humans.
We are subject to it for the same reason we have altruism and loyalty and co-operation - the traits that are worth preserving. It's very difficult to peel the negative aspects away from a general human proclivity to share beliefs and goals.
But, you'll notice, propaganda is not always ascendant or wide-spread: there are periods in every nation's history when it seems to recede to relative unimportance. So, maybe you can examine those periods of enquiry, tolerance, expansion of human awareness, for what they have in common. Then you might spot what the people in charge were doing right - or at least, not doing too badly wrong.

Am I missing something? Is there something that can be done to dampen the damage propaganda can do to a population or its government?

By whom? That's the problem. The faction that's won power through propaganda isn't about to stop using it; the faction that wants to stop its use hasn't the power.

Is there a style of government that can defend itself against propaganda?

Possibly a functional secular democracy. But democracies are rarely allowed to function for very long before they're co-opted, corrupted or sabotaged by one interest group or another. There are structural safeguards that, if established, might protect democracies from such corruption, but again, those with the power to enact change attained their power through the existing system and are not motivated to change it.

Can media defeat propaganda? Can education do it?

If they were independent, probably. But they're both part of the apparatus of power, and serve, to a greater or lesser degree, the interests of the existing system. If a nation were united in desiring an end to propaganda, it could make its organs of information independent of its governance, religion and economic drivers.

Is it a matter of money?

Not really. It's a matter of psychology. Propaganda is used at all levels of organization and for all kinds of purposes, by all kinds of people. From the indoctrination of child in its parents' religion to the taming of a docile wife by an abusive husband, from the training of soldiers to the team-building of senior executives - it's just a very, very useful tool that the seekers of power will not relinquish until you pry it from their cold, dead mouths.

As an individual, however, you can defend yourself. At least from new strains, if not the ones you've cherished from infancy.
In fact, it takes a lot of energy to be zealot for some trumped-up cause. Some part of your functional brain always knows about the lies that the majority of your consciousness believes, so that part has to be kept distracted, or numbed or shamed or bullied into silence, which means that you have to do a lot of shouting and raging to keep up the pretense. And that's what makes zealots so dangerous.

commonsense wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 8:03 pm I didn’t expect positive answers to any of my questions, but I was hopeful that someone might have an insight I hadn’t thought about.

You didn't really set much of a boundary for what you consider propaganda for this purpose. All narrative explanations of history, politics, religion and so on are inherently forms of propaganda at some level. So what is it that you want to guard against?

If one historian presents a history of the Roman empire which emphasises its correlates to the modern way of organising states, let' say for instance that he goes into detail about how in Rome the title of president was merely a master of ceremonies at parties and celebrations, and draws from this that the authors of the modern US constitution were making a point about the very limited role they envisioned for a modern president - that's all true, but it's also propaganda. The person making that point is likely motivated by some political end of their own, but even if not, they would obviously be conscious that once the observation is out there, others will use it for propaganda even they happened to making an innocent observation.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 1:48 pm

commonsense wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 8:03 pm I didn’t expect positive answers to any of my questions, but I was hopeful that someone might have an insight I hadn’t thought about.

You didn't really set much of a boundary for what you consider propaganda for this purpose. All narrative explanations of history, politics, religion and so on are inherently forms of propaganda at some level. So what is it that you want to guard against?

If one historian presents a history of the Roman empire which emphasises its correlates to the modern way of organising states, let' say for instance that he goes into detail about how in Rome the title of president was merely a master of ceremonies at parties and celebrations, and draws from this that the authors of the modern US constitution were making a point about the very limited role they envisioned for a modern president - that's all true, but it's also propaganda. The person making that point is likely motivated by some political end of their own, but even if not, they would obviously be conscious that once the observation is out there, others will use it for propaganda even they happened to making an innocent observation.

Well said.

By “propaganda” I mean lies.

bottomline: you're the gatekeeper of your head

lots of folks wanna get in there and monkey around with the workings

up to you, only you, if they do

commonsense wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 2:00 pm

By “propaganda” I mean lies.

Insufficient. There all kinds of lies. Propaganda is a very particular kind of communication package - not necessarily or exclusively lies - aimed at a specific audience for a specific purpose.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/propaganda
Before you can study a phenomenon to useful effect, you must first understand what it is. Before you can counteract it, you must understand how it works.