I am still working my way towards working on a piece on Jacques Ellul’s book “Propagandas”, but felt a need to comment on one point here: propaganda is an anti-anxiolytic. It calms and soothes people, who view this as a desirable outcome.
For example, when Paul Krugman tells us confidently that we can spend our way into prosperity, many know on some level this is hogwash, but he is, after all, a Nobel Prize winning economist.
Or when Pres. Obama tells us that by increasing medical insurance costs and building a huge bureaucracy that our overall level of health will improve, the same people who think the government has money believe him. It all sounds so seductive, and people WANT it to be true.
One of the principal qualitative aspects of the indoctrination of our school children is teaching them that EXPERTS ARE ALWAYS RIGHT. Given this predisposition to take things on faith, lying simply involves getting the “experts” on board.
And to the point, here: that is what many people want. The anxiety they would otherwise suffer, of doubt and confusion, would be intolerable.