This mistakes an important characteristic for a definition. Propaganda is like marketing for an idea or ideology: it is messaging meant to propagate a set of beliefs where concern for the effectiveness of propagating the message is prioritized over truthfulness or persuading skeptics.
Repetition, as with marketing, is an important technique, but not the only technique. Catchy slogans, references to authorities, and difficult-to-vet obscure supporting ideas are also used. Often celebrity or popular support is touted.
The idea is to make a set of beliefs seem important, at least plausible, popular and ascendant, and to offer shreds of support, without too much or any effort at making them hold water.
Ok, sure. My point is just the defining feature of propaganda is that effectively spreading the message takes not just priority over truthfulness or soundness, but will be used as an excuse for sacrificing truthfulness or soundness.
Any particular technique of propaganda is a tool for achieving the goal of effectively spreading the idea.
This is why “propaganda” has become a pejorative: as with advertising (to a lesser extent! Because advertisers can sometimes be held to account at least for some of their claims): the messaging is understood to be totally biased to the point that truth will happily be sacrificed.
I have a friend whose father was a Minister. She tells the story of watching him at work on a sermon. Every once in a while he would make a note...." weak point, pound pulpit "
This seems to be a variation on the old advice to attorneys arguing in court. “If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If the law is on your side, pound the law. If neither the facts nor the law is on your side, pound the table.”
In Paraguay we use the same word "propaganda" to refer to advertisements and to regular propaganda.
It's not even a Spanish thing, regular Spanish has the separate word "publicidad" to refer to advertisements. But in Paraguay specifically, we don't make a separation between someone trying to sell you on a product/service and someone trying to sell you on a more abstract idea.
The most effective propaganda is that to which the recipient is predisposed. So for example, "mask up to save lives". I want to save lives, so I'd better mask up. Another extremely effective one has been "our diversity is our strength." I want to be strong! Also diversity is good with plants and stocks and diets. Thus it must be good for everything. "We're a nation of immigrants." You know it's good propaganda when the whole phrase just rolls off the tongue and you don't even think about it anymore. It has become goodthink.
I agree, Bryan, but I think it good to see propaganda as one among several prongs of a wider endeavor. The core set of prongs are: propaganda, clientelism, censorship, and persecution. Running through all prongs: Intimidation. I elaborate here:
“If your ideas are good, then selling them via argument and evidence is relatively easy.” Not always. You might be led to good ideas by your good intuition, though it would be difficult to articulate the (valid) basis for your intuitive judgment.
Your definition labels a sophist who was paid by a politician to spin up a credible-sounding case that would appeal to intellectuals as “not a propagandist.” Since I think it is, I think that your definition of propaganda is flawed.
No comment on the actual issues at hand re: gender, but the argument presented here is nonsensical. You cite propaganda as proof by repetition, and then simply wave at a few gender related concepts without stopping to consider why the points might be relevant or not.
One can have propaganda about, say, "Our military is the most powerful in the world" because that's an external fact about the world. Again, without commenting on the value of the claims either way, the COVID examples of six feet apart and masks are also external claims about the world.
The fact that someone feels themselves to be a different gender is not a fact about the world, it is a claim about someone's subjective experience. That subjective experience may very well be influenced by external as well as intrinsic factors, but it's still not a factual claim about the state of the world.
The trigger for this argument is a category error.
I disagree, it's self promoting a personal narrative which is just propaganda at the local level. If it was self evident it would be different. How they feel about themselves is an internal dialogue and neither subject to fact nor verifiable. Whereas just repeating to the world ad infinitum "I'm a guy though I wear dresses, am pregnant, only sleep with men, and for all intent and purposes look and act identical to a trad wife including genitalia" until you get people to believe it via sheer repetition is propaganda.
And yes I know a "guy" exactly like that, two of them actually.
I don't think "I am a woman" is propaganda, for the reasons you gave. But the argument is largely not about whether male people can insist that they identify as a woman. Anybody can have any opinion they want about their internal states. It's about statements like "feeling you are a woman makes you a woman" or "gender affirming healthcare is a moral necessity."
Since “I’m talking to a bunch of weak-minded fools” is a classic violation of Social Desirability Bias, the speakers naturally resent the implication. Still, it may be true. Propaganda is not always false. If your audience is dumb and irrational enough, propaganda is one of the few methods of persuasion that is likely to work.
This is why teenagers/young adults are so susceptible to just about anything you tell them.
I remember as a Catholic teen noticing that the Vatican's PR department was, in those days, called something like , "Office of Propaganda" -- "The Propaganda" for short.
Since the Catholic Church is the oldest institution in the world, the Church probably invented the term.
In my mind, the word already had negative connotations, much like "Pravda" probably does in Russian. But since my church was using the term, and the church obviously didn't want that word to mean something negative, I took it to mean, "Getting the official word out", much like we use the word "PR" today. "Propaganda" wasn't malicious, but only "approved."
And so the word meant neither false nor true, neither good nor bad. It simply meant, "promulgating the official position of a group of people." And I still take it that way.
For example, "Transgenderism" is propaganda -- not of any particular institution but rather of loose association of those who benefit from the concept. Neither true nor false -- just official and proper.
Propaganda always involves a percentage of falsehood, because no group, as Bryan has demonstrated, can avoid having some evildoers in its midst. There is always some "glossing over." But the basic concept is inevitable: any group of people with a common purpose must have propaganda.
But woe to those who mistake propaganda for "truth." They who put their trust in propaganda will suffer the "side effects" of its vaccines.
> If your ideas are good, then selling them via argument and evidence is relatively easy
Like YIMBY, or tariffs-are-bad ;-?
This mistakes an important characteristic for a definition. Propaganda is like marketing for an idea or ideology: it is messaging meant to propagate a set of beliefs where concern for the effectiveness of propagating the message is prioritized over truthfulness or persuading skeptics.
Repetition, as with marketing, is an important technique, but not the only technique. Catchy slogans, references to authorities, and difficult-to-vet obscure supporting ideas are also used. Often celebrity or popular support is touted.
The idea is to make a set of beliefs seem important, at least plausible, popular and ascendant, and to offer shreds of support, without too much or any effort at making them hold water.
You missed an important technique....emotional appeals. Probably the most important of all.
Ok, sure. My point is just the defining feature of propaganda is that effectively spreading the message takes not just priority over truthfulness or soundness, but will be used as an excuse for sacrificing truthfulness or soundness.
Any particular technique of propaganda is a tool for achieving the goal of effectively spreading the idea.
This is why “propaganda” has become a pejorative: as with advertising (to a lesser extent! Because advertisers can sometimes be held to account at least for some of their claims): the messaging is understood to be totally biased to the point that truth will happily be sacrificed.
I have a friend whose father was a Minister. She tells the story of watching him at work on a sermon. Every once in a while he would make a note...." weak point, pound pulpit "
This seems to be a variation on the old advice to attorneys arguing in court. “If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If the law is on your side, pound the law. If neither the facts nor the law is on your side, pound the table.”
In Paraguay we use the same word "propaganda" to refer to advertisements and to regular propaganda.
It's not even a Spanish thing, regular Spanish has the separate word "publicidad" to refer to advertisements. But in Paraguay specifically, we don't make a separation between someone trying to sell you on a product/service and someone trying to sell you on a more abstract idea.
The most effective propaganda is that to which the recipient is predisposed. So for example, "mask up to save lives". I want to save lives, so I'd better mask up. Another extremely effective one has been "our diversity is our strength." I want to be strong! Also diversity is good with plants and stocks and diets. Thus it must be good for everything. "We're a nation of immigrants." You know it's good propaganda when the whole phrase just rolls off the tongue and you don't even think about it anymore. It has become goodthink.
I agree, Bryan, but I think it good to see propaganda as one among several prongs of a wider endeavor. The core set of prongs are: propaganda, clientelism, censorship, and persecution. Running through all prongs: Intimidation. I elaborate here:
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-four-sins-of-thawteffery/
“If your ideas are good, then selling them via argument and evidence is relatively easy.” Not always. You might be led to good ideas by your good intuition, though it would be difficult to articulate the (valid) basis for your intuitive judgment.
Your definition labels a sophist who was paid by a politician to spin up a credible-sounding case that would appeal to intellectuals as “not a propagandist.” Since I think it is, I think that your definition of propaganda is flawed.
Propagandists have an entire battery of persuasive tricks, of which repetition is just one. It is manipulation by means of symbols and slogans.
No comment on the actual issues at hand re: gender, but the argument presented here is nonsensical. You cite propaganda as proof by repetition, and then simply wave at a few gender related concepts without stopping to consider why the points might be relevant or not.
One can have propaganda about, say, "Our military is the most powerful in the world" because that's an external fact about the world. Again, without commenting on the value of the claims either way, the COVID examples of six feet apart and masks are also external claims about the world.
The fact that someone feels themselves to be a different gender is not a fact about the world, it is a claim about someone's subjective experience. That subjective experience may very well be influenced by external as well as intrinsic factors, but it's still not a factual claim about the state of the world.
The trigger for this argument is a category error.
I disagree, it's self promoting a personal narrative which is just propaganda at the local level. If it was self evident it would be different. How they feel about themselves is an internal dialogue and neither subject to fact nor verifiable. Whereas just repeating to the world ad infinitum "I'm a guy though I wear dresses, am pregnant, only sleep with men, and for all intent and purposes look and act identical to a trad wife including genitalia" until you get people to believe it via sheer repetition is propaganda.
And yes I know a "guy" exactly like that, two of them actually.
I don't think "I am a woman" is propaganda, for the reasons you gave. But the argument is largely not about whether male people can insist that they identify as a woman. Anybody can have any opinion they want about their internal states. It's about statements like "feeling you are a woman makes you a woman" or "gender affirming healthcare is a moral necessity."
Since “I’m talking to a bunch of weak-minded fools” is a classic violation of Social Desirability Bias, the speakers naturally resent the implication. Still, it may be true. Propaganda is not always false. If your audience is dumb and irrational enough, propaganda is one of the few methods of persuasion that is likely to work.
This is why teenagers/young adults are so susceptible to just about anything you tell them.
I remember as a Catholic teen noticing that the Vatican's PR department was, in those days, called something like , "Office of Propaganda" -- "The Propaganda" for short.
Since the Catholic Church is the oldest institution in the world, the Church probably invented the term.
In my mind, the word already had negative connotations, much like "Pravda" probably does in Russian. But since my church was using the term, and the church obviously didn't want that word to mean something negative, I took it to mean, "Getting the official word out", much like we use the word "PR" today. "Propaganda" wasn't malicious, but only "approved."
And so the word meant neither false nor true, neither good nor bad. It simply meant, "promulgating the official position of a group of people." And I still take it that way.
For example, "Transgenderism" is propaganda -- not of any particular institution but rather of loose association of those who benefit from the concept. Neither true nor false -- just official and proper.
Propaganda always involves a percentage of falsehood, because no group, as Bryan has demonstrated, can avoid having some evildoers in its midst. There is always some "glossing over." But the basic concept is inevitable: any group of people with a common purpose must have propaganda.
But woe to those who mistake propaganda for "truth." They who put their trust in propaganda will suffer the "side effects" of its vaccines.
tk
It was Office of Propagation of the Faith. As in to spread the faith. 🤣
I mean, yes, the word comes from Catholics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_for_the_Evangelization_of_Peoples. It's same root as the word "propagate"="disperse".
Also, no, "pravda" doesn't have negative connotations in Russian despite that being the newspaper's name, it's just the neutral word.