One more, then it’s off to some thirties pulp fiction.
I submitted this to someone tonight: Propaganda is when the number of adjectives so exceeds the number of verifiable facts that one reaches the end of even lengthy pieces unsure of what has been said, concretely, other than “I disapprove.”
Remember, propaganda has as its purpose the closing off of dialogue, the prevention of self organizing shared perceptions that are based on ideas which did not originate with the propagandist. Propaganda begins when dialogue ends.
Manifestly, no skilled propagandist could get away with saying they sky is green. Our every day experience invalidates that. They would lose their audience immediately. What they do, therefore, is tell the truth, but then sculpt it. The less truth they use, the better, so the more naked, unverifiable assertions, the better.
What they do is say “the sky is sad today”, or “the sky radiates hope today”, or “even the sky agrees with the Chairman’s joyous new plan to cut food rations in half.” You take a fact, and modify it in any way you want, even the most implausible, if you think you can get away with it. In a condition of a controlled media, largely you can get away with it. Obviously, the people know what you are up to, but if it is everywhere, they are influenced over time without realizing it, and if you don’t get too greedy, you can go far.
This is the role that adjectives play. The Tea Party is “racist”. Why is it racist? Because that is the STARTING point of all leftist narratives about it. How do you disprove racism? How do you answer “have you stopped beating your wife yet?” Those predisposed to believe the narratives that they download from their preferred ideological docking station, are quite willing to accept unverifiable truths. It is not a question of physics. It’s not a question of chemistry. It’s not empirical in any way. It is an INTERPRETATION, one that in academic terms is essentializing, which is to say prejudicial to the aggregate, and indifferent with respect to individual differences and particularities. The quality supposed becomes an immutable fact.
The question becomes not “is the Tea Party movement racist”, but “How racist, and can they be stopped?” When you become used to living in seas of adjectives denuded of even a nominal effort at impartial factual analysis, then the importation of ideas like this is seamless and complete.
Those living in propaganda are for this reason something less than human. Not only are they not morally sovereign, in most cases they don’t want to be, and their lack of intellectual freedom is processed, itself, as freedom. Some people are born for cages, and given their shot at the wild open skies, will choose the oppressive gloom and certainty of a cave without hesitation.
This is the bulk of Obama’s dogmatic base. They are for all intents and purposes automotons, and it is precisely because this is a desirable state for them that they won’t listen to the imprecations of reason. In important respects, Leftism is a cult.
It has always seemed interesting to me that Communists change their names. Lenin was Ulyanov. Stalin was, if memory serves, Shakashvilli. Ho Chi Minh’s real name was Nguyen Tat Thanh. Pol Pot’s real name was Saloth Sar. And on it goes. You convert to the cult, and just like in the Moonies you get a new name.
One wonders, in that regard, about the significance of our current President choosing to use the name of a man he only met once in his life, and not his maternal name, or the name of the father who actually spent time with him. What provoked the need to learn more about his fathers dreams, and to carry them forward?