The Problem of Propaganda

 

People usually associate propaganda with politics, especially movements like Bolshevism and fascism.  But the term "propaganda," which is a Latin word, was originally used by the Catholic Church, to describe texts written and mass-printed for the propagation of the faith - usually to people of different faiths, who often spoke different languages.  Propaganda has been used by a wide variety of organizations - religious groups, clubs, fraternal organizations, corporations, etc., etc..

Even so, there has been a rich history of debate about propaganda within the political realm, particularly within the world of Marxism - and this debate has a wider application for everything from the fan base of pop stars to organizations of collectors of model trains and beyond.

The problem is this: on the one hand, there is theory - pure, highfalutin theory.  But theory can be very complex and difficult to understand.  So, on the other hand, there is often a countermovement to theory - an attempt to write and speak and enjoin others to write and speak in a plain, simple style, understandable to the common man.  Very well.  Theory may not be necessary for everyone.  But there are always dangers associated with this, such as:

1. The danger that some of the nuance and subtlety of high theory is lost when it is translated into this more simplistic language.

2. The danger that the difference between the propagandistic version will become so different from the pure theory that it becomes a kind of distortion of it.  

3. The danger that someone who merely understands the propagandistic version of the "faith" (so to speak) will be convinced that they fully comprehend the high theory version - and it may be very difficult to convince them otherwise.

4. The danger that a hierarchy or even a kind of class system will develop between the (low, "exoteric") propagandized public and the (high, "esoteric") true theorists.

5. The danger that elites, not wishing to disturb the delicate sensibilities of the propagandized public, will allow them to persist in their errors, rather than correcting them.

6. The danger that the high theory itself will be changed by the hierarchical system and the elites' interests of maintaining and strengthening their power. 

7. The danger that, in order to maintain the illusions of the propagandized public, the elites will not just passively allow errors to persist, but will actually propagate these errors, intentionally spreading lies and misinformation if it is politically expedient to maintain their power.

8. The danger that some of the elites, who are supposed to understand the true theory, will begin to be convinced by the distorted propagandistic version.  (I. F. Stone famously said, "All governments lie. The danger comes when governments start believing the lies - when they get high on their own supply."  This applies to much more than governments.)

9. The danger that people - both elite propagandists and the propagandized masses, and even enemies or neutral observers - will cease to see the difference between the propaganda and the theory.

10. The danger that the propagandistic version will displace the theory, to the extent that theory is muted, arrested in its development, or silenced completely.  Theory is not considered unnecessary, not required, not encouraged.  Eventually, theory may be forbidden.

For example, Leninism is the propagandistic form of Marxist theory (or rather, not the propagandistic form, but a propagandistic form - one of several).  Eventually, once the propagandistic version displaced Marxist theory to a sufficient extent, real Marxist theory became forbidden, as in the case of Isaak Rubin.

I don't see any simple solution to the problem of propaganda.  Of course, the obvious solution would be to avoid the distinction and disparity between these "classes" - that is, to dissolve the distinction between high theory and low culture - meaning that the general public would have to become theorists.  Perhaps this is what Guy Debord suggested when he asserted that "The proletariat cannot itself come to power except by becoming the class of consciousness."  [SOTS 88]  But how could we possibly make that happen?  Presumably by propagating theory - and so we have come back where we started.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lenin the Moralist

  "Unprincipled practical politics are the most impractical politics."  - V. I. Lenin  It will probably cause me to lose friends all across the political spectrum when I say that the problem with Lenin was that he was too moral.  Deal with it.  Moreover, modern-day soi-disant Leninists are even more moralistic than he was - and therefore, all the more romantic and delusional, and their analyses all the more pointless. I do not mean to imply that Lenin was not responsible for the deaths of many people - he was.  Nor am I saying that Lenin did not commit enough atrocities - that he was not violent enough, not ruthless enough, too timid to accomplish his goals, or anything of the like.  No, no, no.  My point is that Lenin's ideology diverted sharply from Marx's critique of political economy, and in part this was because he tried to reinterpret Marxism into a kind of moral campaign, when Marx had intended nothing of the kind - and, by the way, Lenin...
Read more

Why Capitalism is Ending

Image
  Sorry, Ray Kurzweil , there will be no singularity.  As much as Moore’s Law has become a cliche, it has also become a cliche to point out that exponential growth has no "knee" - that is to say, that an exponential growth curve has no inflection point.  It goes up faster and faster, so that not only is the value rising but the derivative of the value is also rising (that is, the rate of increase is itself increasing) yet at any given point it is still a gradual increase.  Growth that gets indefinitely huger as it approaches a specific point of time, a limit known as a singularity, is not exponential growth but rather hyperbolic growth .  There’s no evidence that technology is growing hyperbolically; it is “only” growing exponentially.  Gordon Moore himself has stated that he doesn't believe in the singularity, or even in the continuation of Moore's Law.   (And Moore's Law is starting to fail, anyway ... )  But it hardly matters;...
Read more
Image
The right is convinced that politics (and economics) are downstream from culture. But the right is winning on the economic front, while losing on the cultural front. The left maintains that the economic base of society in the final instance determines its cultural (and political) superstructure.  ("It's the economy, stupid!")  But the left is winning on the cultural front, while losing on the economic front.  In other words, both sides see themselves as losing in the way that matters to them. Both sides see themselves as winning only in a superficial and ultimately even counterproductive way, while losing on the front that is fundamental and primary.  How can this be true? Why aren’t both sides winning on the issues that truly matter to them, especially since the opposing side doesn’t really care about those issues? Why aren’t we living in an egalitarian society in which class and other forms of inequality have been abolished, which is at the same time a so...
Read more