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Think tanks were born as ways for monarchs to research and organize legal arguments against Church doctrine. They have since expanded to cover a broad range of
by peterwwillis 9y ago
Think tanks were born as ways for monarchs to research and organize legal arguments against Church doctrine. They have since expanded to cover a broad range of subjects, but the central point of a think tank is to get a bunch of smart people together to formalize a particular opinion and support it with arguments/research.
Most often, these are funded by a particular group, for a particular agenda. This is the definition of propaganda.
- foota 9y agoI don't see how this is incompatible with the parent's remarks.
- peterwwillis 9y agoThe disconnect is probably with confusion or distaste over the word 'propaganda'. It has a negative connotation, but 'propaganda' means "non-objective information used primarily to influence an audience or further an agenda", which is what think tanks produce.
- arcbyte 9y agoI think many think-tanks would take issue with "non-objective". Certainly the think tanks themselves subjectively examine only certain issues, but they would like to believe their examinations are as objective as possible. The difference being that while I may only ever study the stars and refuse to study plants, my examinations of the stars are still objective, even though the area of my examinations are not comprehensive.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- erikpukinskis 9y agoSure, there are researchers who are making narrow claims, but what think tank isn't making broad claims? If you're going to make broad claims and claim to be objective, you need a more robust metaphysical approach than the mission statement of these places usually allows... And even then, you'll probably fail. Your tactics leak into your metaphysics and your ideology leaks into your tactics. Broad claims and objectivity just don't mix.
- dredmorbius 9y agoCitation requested.