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Facts Don’t Change Minds: A Case for the Virtues of Propaganda
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y agoSo is this article a factual article or propaganda? Actually, if you read most articles like this, there tends to be an implicit assumption that their audience is part of the small group of rational humans for whom facts and logic change mind but that normal people are just irrational fools who would always pick the wrong thing, therefore the rational people should use ethically questionable techniques such as propaganda and hiding certain information from these regular people so that they make the right choices. That is a very dangerous and anti-democratic idea and is just the repetition of the arguments for aristocracy from thousands of years ago that regular people are too stupid to rule themselves.
- cardanome 3y ago> The ad was one of a few important influences impacting my own decision to give birth in May 2011 to my second child, a healthy girl, at home. As it did for others, the commercial had a positive personal impact on my life. She clearly says that she has been influenced by propaganda. Maybe you should have read the article first. Human beings can be rational and irrational at the same time. Yes, they can be trained to be somewhat more rational but it is silly to think that there are people that make purely rational decisions. Also no healthy individual is just running on pure animal instinct, everyone is capable of some form of rationality. So yes, agreed there is no small class of rational people that should rule us for the greater good of all. The practical consequence is to understand that we ourselves are irrational and if we don't think so, we are just fooling ourselves. And if we want to enact (hopefully positive) change in the world, we need to speak both to the heart and mind of other people.