4 ms·

Yeah, only the most brazen and silly propaganda makes it into period TV and popular hisotries. Pop culture history forgets successful propaganda campaigns that

Yeah, only the most brazen and silly propaganda makes it into period TV and popular hisotries. Pop culture history forgets successful propaganda campaigns that - got people to believe streets are exlusively for cars - got people to accept public health - convinced lots of people it was ok to persecute communists - got people to buy awful 19th century railroad bonds We tend to think of propganada as loudpeakers and silly posters. The most successful propaganda tool of all in most nations is the primary public school.

bllguo 5y ago
> We tend to think of propaganda as loudspeakers and silly posters more generally, people fall in the trap of thinking of propaganda as "messaging that goes against my positions" or "propaganda is what my enemies use" which is 1. hilariously wrong (American propaganda is the best in the world, and far more widespread than Russian or whoever else is the boogeyman du jour) and 2. self-sabotaging (inability to play the game is why liberal messages that _should_ appeal to the majority of Americans fall on deaf ears, why health authorities have failed so spectacularly with COVID, etc.)
- drewcoo 5y ago
  I wonder if bad liberal messaging is at all intentional. Portrayals of liberals as righteous but set-upon underdogs helps feed persecution complexes.
epgui 5y ago
> got people to accept public health Uhh... As a life scientist, I can't help but roll my eyes here. Public health is not propaganda. If you have a narrow and specific example, then advance it.
- DubiousPusher 5y ago
  It seems you believe that propaganda must intrinsically be nefarious or false. My point is that propaganda is anything which the state finds beneficial for people to believe and therefore promotes. As an example, if a turn of the century government produced flyers extolling the virtues of hand washing and simultaneously produced flyers extolling the virtues of eugenics, would one be propaganda of public health but not the other? Why? Edit: To be clear, governments all over the world have executed massive public health information programs. - sanitation in the U.S. ca. the 1910s-1950s - toilet use in India (ongoing) - evangelism of the public health post WWII in the U.K. - Campaigns against AIDS misinformation on Africa from the 90s up to now
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - epgui 5y ago
    I accept different definitions of propaganda depending on the context, and indeed "propaganda" often takes a non-pejorative or non-judgmental sense in scholarly works, but I should point out that 1) this is not the most common use of the term, and 2) there were no examples in your previous comment that made it easy for me to guess that this was your working definition. The set of examples you chose in the other comment drove me to infer that you attributed nefarious intent or pejoration to the term. By this definition however, we would have to also say that things like mathematics and physics education are propaganda. -- Setting that aside, engaging with your question: > if a turn of the century government produced flyers extolling the virtues of hand washing and simultaneously produced flyers extolling the virtues of eugenics, would one be propaganda of public health but not the other? Why? First, I would be more inclined to question the ethics of State-sponsored pro-eugenic pamphlets (there are serious issues on the question of respect for individual autonomy when it comes to eugenics), and I would say that the State promoting hand-washing would be very much ethical. I think the purpose of the material matters: the purpose of eugenics is... not easy to understand as an act of good faith, charitably speaking, whereas the purpose of hand-washing messaging is actually to promote individual autonomy. When individuals perform this action, they derive the most immediate benefit, and can go on to lead their life to their full potential. Whether we qualify both or only one of the two as propaganda is a question of semantics, but either way, moral equivalence is inappropriate, and we should be clear about our working definition and whether there is a normative aspect to the discussion, or if it is purely descriptive.
    - DubiousPusher 5y ago
      Nowhere in any of my posts did I make a moral jusgement, much less an equivalence. The original article's premise is to attribute the "true" purpose of propaganda given that "propaganda doesn't work". The OP who I responded to, pointed out that this was a falacy of "begging the question". I agreed and supoorted with examples of government propaganda campaigns that have worked, making no moral claims. I am not entirely against propaganda. I think public health is a very good example of the positive power propaganda can have. But I am not one who will call anything the government promotes which I don't like propaganda while claiming the things which it proselatyzes that I do like are not. I have things which I would like the government to propagandize and things I would like it to stop propagandizing. I participate in politics to promote those things I like and try to diminish the things I don't like. I'm comfortable making moral judgements about information but I'm fair enough to know others make their own as well. I endoctrinated my child with the germ theory of disease because I find it useful. I did not indoctrinate him with the baptist faith I was endoctrinated with because I feel differently about that information. As to math and physics also being propaganda, yes to some extent I think so. The state is interested in having more rocket scientists as much as they are in having more grunts. There is a nationalism in our sciences that goes back to WWII and the Cold War. It's not as obvious as the cartoonish history and civics material the public schools promote but it's more there in how it is promoted. The information the state wishes for us to internalize is massive and varied in appearance. Perhaps the most impressive feat of propaganda is our modern languages. Nation states have weaponized common language. Government champaigns for standard language and common literature have spread cooperation across much larger geographic areas than was easy historically. It has the added bonus of erasing difference and replacing it with a national identity. And it even time travels. People now justify their national identity via a common language which the nation in fact invented. It's quite remarkable.

bllguo 5y ago

> We tend to think of propaganda as loudspeakers and silly posters more generally, people fall in the trap of thinking of propaganda as "messaging that goes against my positions" or "propaganda is what my enemies use" which is 1. hilariously wrong (American propaganda is the best in the world, and far more widespread than Russian or whoever else is the boogeyman du jour) and 2. self-sabotaging (inability to play the game is why liberal messages that _should_ appeal to the majority of Americans fall on deaf ears, why health authorities have failed so spectacularly with COVID, etc.)

drewcoo 5y ago
I wonder if bad liberal messaging is at all intentional. Portrayals of liberals as righteous but set-upon underdogs helps feed persecution complexes.

epgui 5y ago

> got people to accept public health Uhh... As a life scientist, I can't help but roll my eyes here. Public health is not propaganda. If you have a narrow and specific example, then advance it.

DubiousPusher 5y ago
It seems you believe that propaganda must intrinsically be nefarious or false. My point is that propaganda is anything which the state finds beneficial for people to believe and therefore promotes. As an example, if a turn of the century government produced flyers extolling the virtues of hand washing and simultaneously produced flyers extolling the virtues of eugenics, would one be propaganda of public health but not the other? Why? Edit: To be clear, governments all over the world have executed massive public health information programs. - sanitation in the U.S. ca. the 1910s-1950s - toilet use in India (ongoing) - evangelism of the public health post WWII in the U.K. - Campaigns against AIDS misinformation on Africa from the 90s up to now
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- epgui 5y ago
  I accept different definitions of propaganda depending on the context, and indeed "propaganda" often takes a non-pejorative or non-judgmental sense in scholarly works, but I should point out that 1) this is not the most common use of the term, and 2) there were no examples in your previous comment that made it easy for me to guess that this was your working definition. The set of examples you chose in the other comment drove me to infer that you attributed nefarious intent or pejoration to the term. By this definition however, we would have to also say that things like mathematics and physics education are propaganda. -- Setting that aside, engaging with your question: > if a turn of the century government produced flyers extolling the virtues of hand washing and simultaneously produced flyers extolling the virtues of eugenics, would one be propaganda of public health but not the other? Why? First, I would be more inclined to question the ethics of State-sponsored pro-eugenic pamphlets (there are serious issues on the question of respect for individual autonomy when it comes to eugenics), and I would say that the State promoting hand-washing would be very much ethical. I think the purpose of the material matters: the purpose of eugenics is... not easy to understand as an act of good faith, charitably speaking, whereas the purpose of hand-washing messaging is actually to promote individual autonomy. When individuals perform this action, they derive the most immediate benefit, and can go on to lead their life to their full potential. Whether we qualify both or only one of the two as propaganda is a question of semantics, but either way, moral equivalence is inappropriate, and we should be clear about our working definition and whether there is a normative aspect to the discussion, or if it is purely descriptive.
  - DubiousPusher 5y ago
    Nowhere in any of my posts did I make a moral jusgement, much less an equivalence. The original article's premise is to attribute the "true" purpose of propaganda given that "propaganda doesn't work". The OP who I responded to, pointed out that this was a falacy of "begging the question". I agreed and supoorted with examples of government propaganda campaigns that have worked, making no moral claims. I am not entirely against propaganda. I think public health is a very good example of the positive power propaganda can have. But I am not one who will call anything the government promotes which I don't like propaganda while claiming the things which it proselatyzes that I do like are not. I have things which I would like the government to propagandize and things I would like it to stop propagandizing. I participate in politics to promote those things I like and try to diminish the things I don't like. I'm comfortable making moral judgements about information but I'm fair enough to know others make their own as well. I endoctrinated my child with the germ theory of disease because I find it useful. I did not indoctrinate him with the baptist faith I was endoctrinated with because I feel differently about that information. As to math and physics also being propaganda, yes to some extent I think so. The state is interested in having more rocket scientists as much as they are in having more grunts. There is a nationalism in our sciences that goes back to WWII and the Cold War. It's not as obvious as the cartoonish history and civics material the public schools promote but it's more there in how it is promoted. The information the state wishes for us to internalize is massive and varied in appearance. Perhaps the most impressive feat of propaganda is our modern languages. Nation states have weaponized common language. Government champaigns for standard language and common literature have spread cooperation across much larger geographic areas than was easy historically. It has the added bonus of erasing difference and replacing it with a national identity. And it even time travels. People now justify their national identity via a common language which the nation in fact invented. It's quite remarkable.