From http://www.angelfire.com/psy/intheheart/propag.html
by Jacques Ellul;
author of The Technological Society, translated from the French by
Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner, with an introduction by Konrad Kellen; Vintage
Books, a division of Random House, New York, 1965
This information is being sent out and
otherwise shared with people, free of charge, in order to alert and inform, in
solidarity with Ellul's stated premise of being *in defense of man*; basically,
the excellence of people before they are coercively subordinated to
institutionalized alienation and the techniques of social control.
([Note:
due to my disagreement with Ellul on the merits of holding "the
technological society" to blame for the birth of propaganda--and would
rather he spoke more directly of the actual problem--alienation, and it's
notable rise before modern or even historical technology--I'm keeping his more
superficial views to a minimum. I agree with Noam Chomsky that technology--or
tools--don't necessarily and automatically *use* us; the resulting tendency of
using technology may be to tool us towards alienation, but this may not always
be a constant, especially when we are acquainted with important insights like
Ellul's earlier book for which he is more famous (at least in anarchist and
leftist circles): The Technological Society.])
from
the introduction:
"Jacques Ellul's view of propaganda and
his approach to the study of propaganda are new. The principal
difference between his thought edifice and most other literature on propaganda
is that Ellul regards propaganda as a sociological phenomenon [resulting from
our technological society] rather than as something made by
certain people for certain purposes. (...)
"Most
people are easy prey for propaganda,
Ellul says, because of their firm but
entirely erroneous conviction that it is
composed only of lies and "tall stories" and that, conversely, what is true cannot be propaganda.
But modern propaganda has long disdained the ridiculous lies of past and
outmoded forms of propaganda. It operates instead with many different kinds of
truth--half-truth, limited truth, truth out of
context. (...)
"A
second misconception that makes people vulnerable to propaganda is the notion
that it serves only to change opinions. That is one of its aims, but a limited,
subordinate one. Much more importantly, it aims
to intensify existing trends, to sharpen and focus them, and, above all, to
lead men to action (or,
when it is directed at immovable opponents, to non-action
through terror or discouragement, to prevent them from interfering). Therefore
Ellul distinguishes various forms of propaganda and calls his book propagandas--the
plural is one of the keys to his concept. The most trenchant distinction made
by Ellul is between agitation
propaganda and integration propaganda. The former leads men from mere
resentment to rebellion; the latter aims at making them adjust themselves to
desired patterns. Both exist all over the world. Integration propaganda is
needed especially for the technological society to flourish, and its
technological means--mass media among them--in turn make such integration
propaganda possible.
A
related point, central in Ellul's thesis, is that modern
propaganda cannot work without "education"; he thus reversed
the widespread notion that education is the best prophylactic against
propaganda. On the contrary, he says, education or what usually goes by
that word in the modern world, is the absolute prerequisite for propaganda. In
fact, education is largely
identical with what Ellul calls "pre-propaganda"--the
conditioning of minds with vast amounts of incoherent information, already
dispensed for ulterior purposes and posing as "facts" and as
"education." Ellul follows through by designating
intellectuals as virtually the most vulnerable of all to modern propaganda,
for three reasons:
1. they absorb the largest amount of
secondhand, unverifiable information;
2. they feel a compelling need to have an
opinion on every important question of our time, and thus easily succumb to
opinions offered to them by propaganda on all such indigestible pieces of
information;
3. they consider themselves capable of
"judging for themselves." They literally need propaganda.
In
fact, the need for propaganda on the part of the
"propagandee" is one of the most powerful elements of Ellul's
thesis. Cast out of the disintegrating microgroups of the past, such as
[extended] family, church, or village, the individual is plunged into mass
society and thrown back upon his own inadequate resources, his isolation, his
loneliness, his ineffectuality. Propaganda then hands him in veritable abundance
what he needs: a raison d'etre, personal involvement and
participation in important events, an outlet and excuse for some of his more
doubtful impulses, righteousness--all factitious, to be sure, all more or less
spurious; but he drinks it all in and asks for more. Without this intense collaboration by the propagandee the
propagandist would be helpless.
Thus
propaganda, by first creating pseudo-needs through "pre-propaganda"
and then providing pseudo-satisfactions for them, is pernicious. Can wholesome propaganda be made for a wholesome
cause? Can Democracy, Christianity, Humanism be propagated by modern
propaganda techniques? Ellul traces the similarities among all propaganda
efforts--Communist, Nazi, Democratic. He thinks that no one can use
this intrinsically undemocratic weapon--or, rather, abandon himself to
it--unscathed or without undergoing deep transformations in the process. He
shows the inevitable, unwilled propaganda effects of which the "good"
propagandist is unaware, the "fallout" from any major propaganda
activity and all its pernicious consequences. Most pernicious of all:
the process, once fully launched, tends to become irreversible.
Ellul critically reviews what most American authors have written on the subject of propaganda and mass media, having studied the literature from Lasswell to Riesman with great thoroughness...Ellul believes that, on the whole, propaganda is much more effective, and effective in many more ways, than most American analysis shows....propaganda is a unique phenomenon that results from the totality of forces pressing in upon an individual and his society...
NOTE: Ellul, due to his writing in the early 1960s, leaves out the most recent phenomenon of propaganda Newspeak, where all *popular* persuasion is being instilled in college students as the still negatively connotative "propaganda" while persuasion from alleged "reputable" sources is merely "information."--ed
To
make his many original points, Ellul never relies on statistics or quantification, which he heartily disdains, but
on observation and logic. His treatise is a fully integrated structure of
thought in which every piece fits in with all the others--be they a hundred
pages apart.
(...)
...At
the end of this book, Ellul...states that, in his view, propaganda is today a greater danger to
mankind than any of the other more grandly advertised threats hanging over the
human race. His
super-analysis ends with a warning, not a prophesy.
Konrad Kellen, February 1965.
Propaganda,
by whatever name we may call it, has become a very general phenomenon in the
modern world. Differences in political regimes matter little; differences in
social levels are more important; and most important is national self-awareness
[between three great propaganda blocs: the U.S.S.R., China, and the United
States]. (...)
[(Ed's
note: I can see this truth up to the early 1960s up through the 1980s; but in
the 21st century, with the incoming of the *new world order* as Bush I called
it, the importance of national self-awareness has taken a back-seat to
differences in social levels--read Chomsky's analysis on the "new world
order" and you may also come to this conclusion. For this reason, I'm skipping
over this part of Ellul's analysis.)]
Whatever the diversity of countries and methods, they have one characteristic in common: concern with effectiveness. (1) Propaganda is made, first of all, because of a will to action, for the purpose of effectively arming policy and giving irresistible power to its decisions. (2) Whoever handles this instrument can be concerned solely with effectiveness. This is the supreme law, which must never be forgotten when the phenomenon of propaganda is analyzed. Ineffective propaganda is no propaganda. This instrument belongs to the technological universe [at a time, 1965, when technology, notably, was quite out of the hands of non-elites; thus the need for a deeper analysis in the year 2000+--ed], shares its characteristics, and is indissolubly linked to it.
note
1: [Nazi high official] Goebbels said: "We
do not talk to say something, but to obtain a certain effect." And
F.C. Bartlett accurately states that the goal
of propaganda is not to increase political understanding of events, but to
obtain results through action.
note 2: Harold D. Lasswell's definition of the goal of propaganda is accurate: "To maximize the power at home by subordinating groups and individuals, while reducing the material cost of power." Similarly, in war, propaganda is an attempt to win victory with a minimum of physical expense. Before the war, propaganda is a substitute for physical violence; during the war, it is a supplement to it.
Not only is propaganda itself a technique, it is also an indispensable condition for the development of technical progress and the establishment of a technological civilization***. And, as with all techniques, propaganda is subject to the law of efficiency. But whereas it is relatively easy to study a precise technique, whose scope can be defined, a study of propaganda runs into some extraordinary obstacles.
***While this information may be valuable for those persons wishing
to block the rise of technological society in what is called the "3rd
World", we can reasonably say that technological propaganda has won over
most of the rest of the world, and is well established in the hearts and minds
of most in the so-called "First and Second Worlds". I would thus
promote that people realize the value of:
1) Looking at where the propaganda
campaign has continued on and in which forms and
2) Looking at how we may demystify
this meta game in steps which are not too far beyond the imaginations of those whose hearts and minds are now deeply
tooled by the establishment of alienation (re: the technological society as it
stands today, even with the advent of the Internet) [The internet as it was in 1965?!]
From
the outset it is obvious that there is great uncertainty about the phenomenon
itself, arising first of all from a priori moral or political concepts. Propaganda
is usually regarded as an evil; this in itself makes a
study difficult. To study anything properly, one must put aside ethical
judgments. Perhaps an objective study will lead us back to them, but only
later, and with full cognizance of the facts.
A
second source of confusion is the general conviction, derived from past
experience, that propaganda consists mainly of "tall
stories," disseminated by means of lies. To adopt this view is to
prevent oneself from understanding anything about the actual phenomenon, which
is very different from what it was in the past.
Even
when these obstacles have been removed, it is still very difficult to determine
what constitutes propaganda in our world and what the nature of propaganda is. This is because it is a secret
action. The temptation is then twofold: to agree with Jacques
Driencourt that "everything is propaganda" [(today's popular conception--ed)] because everything in the political or
economic spheres seems to be penetrated and molded by this force; or, as
certain modern American social scientists have done, to abandon the term propaganda altogether
because it cannot be defined with any degree of
precision. Either course is inadmissible intellectual surrender. To adopt either attitude would lead us to abandon the
study of a phenomenon that exists and needs to be defined.
We
then came up against the extreme difficulty of definition.
We can immediately discard such simplistic definitions as Marbury B. Ogle's:
"Propaganda is any effort to change opinions or attitudes...The
propagandist is anyone who communicates his ideas with the intent of
influencing his listener." Such a definition would include the teacher,
the priest, and indeed any person conversing with another on any topic. [(No wonder, then, that today's thought
control pushes this in the popular mind. How convenient to broadly wipe away
illegitimate authority's complicity in one broad stroke!--ed)] Such a broad definition clearly does not
help us to understand the specific character of propaganda.
As far as definitions are concerned, there has been a characteristic evolution in the United States. From 1920 to about 1933 the main emphasis was on the psychological: Propaganda is a manipulation of psychological symbols having goals of which the listener is not conscious. (3)
note 3: John Albig has named these elements of definition: the secret character of the sources and goals of propaganda; the intention to modify opinions; the dissemination of conclusions of doubtful validity; the notion of inculcating ideas rather than explaining them. This is partially correct, but outdated.
Since
the appearance of Lasswell's studies, propaganda by other means and with stated
objectives has been considered possible. Attention then became focused on
the intention of the propagandist. In more recent books,
the aim to indoctrinate--particularly in regard to political,
economic, and social matters--has been regarded as the hallmark of propaganda.
Within this frame of reference one could determine what constitutes propaganda
by looking at the propagandist--such and such a person is a propagandist,
therefore his words and deeds are propaganda [(and therefore bad--ed)].
But
it appears that American authors eventually accepted the definition given by
the Institute of Propaganda Analysis and inspired by Lasswell:
"Propaganda is the
expression of opinions or actions carried out deliberately by individuals or groups with a view to influencing the
opinions or actions of other individuals or groups for predetermined ends
and through psychological manipulations" (4)
note 4: The idea is often added that propaganda deals with "controversial questions in a group." More profound is Daniel Lerner's idea that propaganda is a means of altering power ratios in a group by modifying attitudes through manipulation of symbols. However, I am not entirely in agreement with the exclusively psychological character of this definition.
We
could quote definitions for pages on end. [Author goes on to give short quotes from the Italian author,
Antonio Miotto, the well-known American specialist Leonard W. Doob, and
"even more remote definitions in German or Russian literature on the
subject."]
I
will not give a definition of my own here. I only wanted to show the uncertainty among specialists on the question.
I consider it more useful to proceed with the analysis of the characteristics
of propaganda as an existing sociological phenomenon. It is perhaps proper to
underline this term. We shall examine propaganda in both its past and present [(1965)] forms.
(...)
To
study propaganda we must turn not to the psychologist, but to the propagandist;
[(Thomas Szasz might protest, as
he shows that psychology and psychiatry are, as a rule, full of scientific and
religious-like propaganda)] we must examine not a test group, but a whole
nation subjected to real and effective propaganda. Of course this excludes all
so-called scientific (that is, statistical) types of study, but at least we
shall have respected the object of our study--unlike many present -day
specialists who establish a rigorous method of observation, but, in order to
apply it, lose the object to be studied. Rather, we shall consider what the
nature of propaganda is wherever it is applied and wherever it is dominated by
a concern for effectiveness.
Finally,
we take the term propaganda in its broadest sense, so that it
embraces the following areas:
Psychological
action: The propagandist
seeks to modify opinions by purely psychological means; most often he pursues a
semi-educative objective and addresses himself to his fellow citizens.
Psychological warfare: Here the propagandist is dealing with a foreign
[(and domestic, illustrated by war on American Indians and f.b.i.'s once
illegal COINTELPRO--ed)] adversary whose morale he seeks to destroy by
psychological means so that the opponent begins to doubt the validity of his
beliefs and actions. (5)
note 5: Maurice Megret's analysis distinguishes three parts: a propaganda agency (support of military operations); a politico-military action (to insure the submission of the population by technical, non-violent means); a coherent thought system.
Re-education
and brainwashing: Complex
methods of transforming an adversary into an ally which can be used only on
prisoners. [(notably, such "allies" are often viewed only as tools
which can be and have been thrown away or turned on when such weighed interests
are served--ed)]
Public
and human relations:
These must necessarily be included in propaganda. This statement may shock some
readers, but we shall show that these activities are propaganda because they
seek to adapt the individual to a society, to a living standard, to an
activity. They serve to make him conform, which is the aim of all propaganda.
[(Jerome Agel's 1970s book, Rough Change: Therapy Means Liberation Not
Adjustment comes to my mind here; as well as the value of the public
and private schools in the indoctrination of our most trusting and
unprepared--ed)]
Propaganda
in its broad sense includes all of these. In the narrow
sense it is characterized by an institutional quality. In
propaganda we find techniques of psychological influence combined with
techniques of organization and the envelopment of people with the intention of
sparking action. This, then, will be the broad field of our inquiry.
From
the complete universe of propaganda I have deliberately excluded the following
subjects found in most propaganda studies:
1. Historical accounts...particularly...1914
or 1940, and so forth.
2. Propaganda in public opinion as an entity,
considering public opinion, its formation, and so forth, as the major problem,
and propaganda as a simple instrument for forming or changing opinion as the
minor problem.
3. Psychological foundations...On what
prejudices, drives, motivations, passions, complexes, does the propagandist
play? What psychic force does he utilize to obtain his results?
4. The techniques...How does the propagandist
put the psychic force into action, how can he reach people, how can he induce
them to act?
5. The media of propaganda: the mass media of
communication.
[(Editor's
note: important authors on the topic of propaganda of which I'm aware of
include Christopher Simpson on psychological warfare from 1945-1960 and Noam
Chomsky on the public relations industry, specifically in his online book Necessary
Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies (see his archive with
www.zmag.org). Also the rare find, Alex Carey is supposed to be worth the
effort, but I've yet to find his work even tho Chomsky gave him a major plug.
See also the Reporter's Collective on psychological warfare at: www.Africa2000.com/PNDX/ http://www.africa2000.com/ )]
Such
are the five chapter headings found everywhere. Somewhat less common are
studies on the characteristics of the great
examples of propaganda: Hitlerite, Stalinist, American, and so on. These
are omitted here precisely because they have been frequently analyzed. The
reader will find in the bibliography all that is useful to know on each of
these questions. I have instead tried to examine aspects of propaganda
very rarely treated--to adopt a point of view, a perspective, an unorthodox
view. I have sought to use a method that is neither abstract nor
statistical, but occasionally relies on existing studies. The reader should
know that he is not dealing with an Encyclopedia of Propaganda, but with a work
that assumes his familiarity with its psychological
foundations, techniques, and methods, and that endeavors to bring contemporary
man a step closer to an awareness of propaganda--the very phenomenon that
conditions and regulates him
On the other hand, I have considered propaganda as a whole. It is usual to pass ethical judgments on its ends, judgments that then dedound [redound ?] on propaganda considered as a means, such as: Because democracy is good and dictatorship bad, propaganda serving a democracy is good even if as a technique it is identical with propaganda serving a dictatorship. Or, because Socialism is good and Fascism bad, propaganda is not altogether evil in the hands of Socialists, but is totally evil in Fascist hands (6). I repudiate this attitude. Propaganda as a phenomenon is essentially the same in China or the Soviet Union or the United States or Algeria. Techniques tend to align themselves with one another. The media of dissemination may be more or less perfected, more or less directly used, just as organizations may be more or less effective, but that does not change the heart of the problem: those who accept the principle of propaganda and decide to utilize it will inevitably employ the most effective organization and methods. (7) Moreover, the premise of this book is that propaganda, no matter who makes it--be he the most upright and best-intentioned of men--has certain identical results in Communism or Hitlerism or Western democracy, inevitable results on the individual or groups, and different from the doctrine promulgated, or the regime supported, by that propaganda. In other words, Hitlerism as a regime had certain effects, and the propaganda used by the Nazis undeniably had certain specific characteristics. But whereas most analysts stop at this specificity, I have tried to eliminate it in order to look only at the mot general characteristics, the effects common to all cases, to all methods of propaganda. Therefore I have adopted the same perspective and the same method in studying propaganda as in studying any other technique.
note 6: This what Serge Tchakhotin claims.
note 7: As Megret has said, the officers in Indochina who came in contact with
North Vietnamese propaganda had an "over-all political view" that
substituted itself for the "fragmented use of the technical means" of
propaganda; all this is part of the progression from old ideas to new
phenomena.
I
shall devote much space to the fact that propaganda has become an inescapable necessity for everyone [(path of least resistance has become
institutionalized, at least amongst elites vying for power in the Left, Right,
Center, and margins, apparently--ed)]. In this connection I have come upon
a source of much misunderstanding. Modern man worships "facts"--that is, he accepts
"facts" as the ultimate reality. He is convinced that what is, is
good. He believes that facts in themselves provide evidence and proof, and he willingly subordinates values to them; he
obeys what he believes to be necessity, which he somehow connects with the idea
of progress. This stereotyped ideological attitude inevitably results in a
confusion between judgments of probability and judgments of value. Because fact
is the sole criterion, it must be good.
[(editor's
note: if you recall the Leftist penchant to propaganda on the comment of George
Bush I, where he says: "I don't care what the facts are" in regard to
his 'patriotism' to his country, then you can get a better grasp of the
awareness of the meta gamers--re: Bush-- who know that there is more to the
game than mere facts; unlike the masses, where such meta concepts escape them.
Same also with the use of facts without honesty-oriented contexts.)] (...)
As we proceed to analyze the development of propaganda, to consider its
inescapable influence in the modern world and its connection with all
structures of our society, the reader will be tempted to see an approval
of propaganda. Because propaganda is presented as a necessity, such a work
would therefore force the author to make propaganda, to foster
it, to intensify it. I want to emphasize that nothing is further from my mind;
such an assumption is possible only by those who worship facts and power. In my
opinion, necessity never establishes legitimacy; the world of necessity is a
world of weakness, a world that denies [the best of humanity]. To say that a
phenomenon is necessary means, for me, that it denies man: its
necessity is proof of its power, not of its excellence.
However,
confronted by a necessity, man must
become aware of it, if he is to master it. As long as
man denies the inevitability of a phenomenon, as long as he avoids facing up to
it, he will go astray. He will delude himself, by submitting in fact to
"necessity" while pretending that he is free "in spite of
it," and simply because he claims to be free. Only when he realizes his
delusion will he experience the beginning of genuine freedom--in the act of
realization itself--be it only from the effort to stand back and look squarely
at the phenomenon and reduce it to raw fact.
The
force of propaganda is a direct attack against man. The question is to
determine how great the danger is. Most replies are based on unconscious a
priori dogmas. Thus the Communists, who
do not believe in human nature but only in the human condition, believe that
propaganda is all-powerful, legitimate (whenever they employ it), and
instrumental in creating a new type of man. American
sociologists scientifically try to play down the effectiveness of
propaganda because they cannot accept the idea that
the individual--the cornerstone of democracy--can be so fragile; and because
they retain their ultimate trust in man. Personally, I too, tend to
believe in the pre-eminence of man and, consequently, in his invincibility.
Nevertheless, as I observe the facts, I realize man
is terribly malleable, uncertain of himself, ready to accept and to follow many
suggestions, and is tossed about by all the winds of doctrine. But
when, in the course of these pages, I shall reveal the full power of propaganda
against man, when I advance to the very threshold of showing the most profound
changes in his personality, it does not mean I am anti-democratic.
The
strength of propaganda reveals, of course, one of the most dangerous flaws of
democracy. But this has nothing to do with my own opinions. If I am in
favor of democracy, I can only regret that propaganda renders the true exercise
of it almost impossible. But I think it would be even worse to entertain any
illusions about a co-existence of true
democracy and propaganda. Nothing is worse in times of danger than
to live in a dream world. To warn a political system of the menace hanging
over it does not imply an attack against it, but is the greatest service one
can render the system. The same goes for man: to warn him of his weakness is
not to attempt to destroy him, but rather to encourage him to strengthen
himself. I have no sympathy with the haughty aristocratic intellectual who
judges from on high, believing himself invulnerable to the destructive forces
of his time, and disdainfully considers the common people as cattle to be
manipulated, to be molded by the action of propaganda in the most intimate
aspects of their being. I insist that to give such warning is an act in the
defense of man, that I am not judging propaganda with Olympian detachment, and
that having suffered, felt, and analyzed the impact of the power of propaganda
on myself, having been time and again, and still being, the object of
propaganda, I want to speak of it as a menace
which threatens the total personality.
In
order to delineate the real dimensions of propaganda we must always consider it
within the context of civilization. Perhaps the most fundamental defect of
most studies made on the subject is their attempt to analyze propaganda as an
isolated phenomenon. This corresponds to the rather prevalent attitude that
separates socio-political phenomena from each other and of not establishing any
correlation between parts, an attitude that in turn, reassures the student of
the validity of the various systems. Democracy, for example, is studied as it
the citizen were an entity separate from the State, as if public opinion were a
"thing in itself"; meanwhile, the scientific study of public
opinion and propaganda is left to other specialists, and the specialist in
public opinion in turn relies on the jurist to define a suitable legal
framework for democracy. The problems of the technological society are
studied without reference to their possible influence on mental and emotional
life; the labor movement is examined without attention to the changes
brought about by psychological means, and so on.
(Note:
authors like Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend write in depth about the
poly-tricks of scientific *method* itself, and such may be valuable in addition
to Ellul, here--ed)
Again,
I want to emphasize that the study of propaganda must be conducted within the
context of the technological society. Propaganda is called upon to solve
problems created by technology, to play on maladjustments, and to integrate the
individual into a technological world. Propaganda is a good deal less the political
weapon of a regime (it is that also) than the effect of a technological society
that embraces the entire man and tends to be a completely integrated society.
At the present time [(1965,
and surely continuing--ed)], propaganda is the innermost, and most elusive,
manifestation of this trend. Propaganda must be seen as situated at the center
of the growing powers of the State and governmental and administrative
techniques. People keep saying: "Everything depends on what kind of
a State makes use of propaganda." But if we really have understood the
technological State, such a statement becomes meaningless. In the midst of increasing mechanization and
technological organization, propaganda is simply the means used to prevent
these things from being felt as too oppressive and to persuade man to submit
with good grace. When man will be fully adapted to this technological
society, when he will end by obeying with enthusiasm, convinced of the
excellence of what he is forced to do, the constraint of the organization will
no longer be felt by him; the truth is, it will no longer be a constraint, and
the police will have nothing to do [(except when their interest groups help
create new enemies and new illegalities--ed)]. The civic and technological
goodwill and the enthusiasm for the right social myths--both created by
propaganda--will finally have solved the problem of man.
Jacques
Ellul, 1962
[(Note: Aldous Huxley, in Brave New
World--REVISITED, his companion book to the famous novel, goes into more
depth on these end topics, especially around page 21.)]
From
the Contents, parts I'm including excerpts from here: Chapter 1: The
Characteristics of Propaganda section 3: Political Propaganda and Sociological
Propaganda [and?] Propaganda of Agitation and Propaganda of
Integration Vertical and Horizontal Propaganda Rational and Irrational Propaganda
Chapter
IV: Psychological Crystallization Alienation through Propaganda (...) Creation
of the Need for Propaganda (...) Section 1: Propaganda and Ideology (...) The
New Relationship
Section
3: Propaganda and Grouping The Partitioning of Groups (...) Section 4:
Propaganda and Democracy Democracy's Need for Propaganda Democratic Propaganda
(...) Effects of Internal Propaganda (...) Appendix I--Effectiveness of
Propaganda Section 2: Ineffectiveness of Propaganda Section 4: The Limits of
Propaganda Appendix II--Mao Tse-Tung's Propaganda Section 2: Since 1949
Education Encirclement
True modern propaganda can only function within the context of the modern scientific system. But what is it? Many observers look upon propaganda as a collection of "gimmicks" and of more or less serious practices (1). And psychologists and sociologists very often reject the scientific character of these practices. For our part, we completely agree that propaganda is a technique rather than a science (2). But it is a modern technique--that is, it is based on one or more branches of science. Propaganda is the expression of these branches of science; it moves with them, shares their successes, and bears witness to their failures. The time is past when propaganda was a matter of individual inspiration, personal subtlety, or the use of unsophisticated tricks. Now science has entered propaganda, as we shall reveal from four different points of view.
Note
1: Most French psychologists and psycho-sociologists do not regard propaganda
as a serious practice or as having much influence [in 1965].
Note 2: In this connection Albig is right to stress that propaganda cannot be a science because in the field in which it applies there can be neither valid generalizations nor constant factors.
First
of all, modern propaganda is based on scientific analyses of psychology and
sociology. Step by step, the propagandist builds his techniques on the basis of
his knowledge of man, his tendencies, his desires, his needs, his psychic
mechanisms, his conditioning--and as much on social psychology as ondepth
psychology [depth
psychology?]. He
shapes his procedures on the basis of our knowledge of groups and their laws of
formation and dissolution, of mass influences, and of environmental
limitations. Without the scientific research of modern psychology and
sociology there would be no propaganda, or rather we still would be in the
primitive stages of propaganda that existed in the time of Pericles or
Augustus.
[(For purposes of
internet readability, I'm going to break his longer paragraphs up some more,
and follow the more recent trend of getting away from his days of long
paragraphs--ed)]
Of
course, propagandists may be insufficiently versed in these branches of
science; they may misunderstand them, go beyond the cautious conclusions of the
psychologists, or claim to apply certain psychological discoveries that, in
fact, do not apply at all. But all this only shows efforts to find new ways: only
for the past fifty years [in 1962] have men sought to apply the psychological
and sociological sciences. The important thing is that propaganda has decided
to submit itself to science and to make use of it.
Of
course, psychologists may be scandalized and say that this is a misuse of their
science. But this argument carries no weight; the same applies to our
physicists and the atomic bomb. The scientist should know that he lives in a
world in which his discoveries will be utilized. (...)
...one
last trait reveals the scientific character of modern propaganda: the
increasing attempt to control its use, measure its results, and define its
effects. ...He wants to understand the how and why of them and measure their
exact effect. ([note: I wonder if the media's close observation of audiences
watching movies, such as one called "Happiness" is an example; where
commissars--those who've internalized the values of propaganda--do the most
valuable groundwork, similar to college students submitting their energies to
the university--ed])
(...)
section
1: External Characteristics: The individual and the masses
Any modern propaganda will, first of all, address itself at one and the same
time to the individual and to the masses. It cannot separate the two elements.
For propaganda to address itself to the individual, in his isolation, apart
from the crowd, is impossible. The individual is of no interest to the
propagandist; as an isolated unit he presents much too much resistance to
external action. To be effective, propaganda cannot be concerned with detail,
not only because to win men over one by one takes much too long, but also
because to create certain convictions in an isolated individual is much too
difficult. (...)
...The
most favorable moment to seize a man and influence him is when he is alone in
the mass: it is at this point that propaganda can be most effective.
We
must emphasize this circle which we shall meet again and again: the structure of present-day society places the
individual where he is most easily reached by propaganda. The media
of mass communication, which are part of the technical evolution of this
society, deepen this situation while making it possible to reach the individual
man, integrated in the mass; and what these media do is exactly what propaganda
must do in order to attain its objectives. In reality propaganda cannot
exist without using these mass media. If, by
chance, propaganda is addressed to an organized group, it can have practically
no effect on individuals before that group has been fragmented (3).
Total
Propaganda
Propaganda must be total. The propagandist must utilize all of the technical
means at his disposal--the press, radio, TV, movies, posters, meetings, and
door-to-door canvassing. Modern propaganda must utilize all of
these media. There is no propaganda as
long as one makes use, in sporadic fashion and at random, of a newspaper
article here, a poster or a radio program there, organizes a few meetings and
lectures, writes a few slogans on walls; that is not propaganda [of and
by itself; it needs the systematic method of the techniques in the mainstream]
([yet another example
of the pernicious attempt of recent--21st Century--attempts to push the idea
that ALL persuasion by independents with comparably tiny resources is
BAD/propaganda, while mainstream persuasion is Good/simply informational--ed])
note 3: Edward A. Shils and Morris Janowitz have demonstrated the importance of the group in the face of propaganda; the Germans, they claim, did not yield earlier in World War II because the various groups of their military structure held fast. Propaganda cannot do much when the social group has not disintegrated...See below, Appendix I.
from note 9: ...the public must be conditioned to accept the claims that are made.
Continuity
and Duration of Propaganda
Propaganda must be continuous and lasting--continuous in that it must not leave
any gaps, but must fill the citizen's whole day
and all his days....Propaganda tends to make the individual live in a
separate world; he must not have outside points of reference. He must not
be allowed a moment of meditation or reflection in which to see himself
vis-a-vis the propagandist, as happens when the propaganda is not continuous.
At that moment the individual emerges from the grip of propaganda...
The
individual must not be allowed to recover, to collect himself, to remain
untouched by propaganda during any relatively long period, for propaganda is
not the touch of a magic wand. It is based on
slow, constant impregnation. It creates convictions and compliance
through imperceptible influences that are effective only by continuous
repetition. It must create a complete environment for the individual...The slow
building up of reflexes and myths ([re: "reputable vs. disreputable" information,
"professionalism", etc.--ed]), of psychological environment and prejudices, requires propaganda
of a very long duration. ([re: being forced to trust in the value of Western professionals
as with Africans in today's AIDS crisis, which could well be something similar
to the introduction of Small Pox in blankets given to the American Indians as
an extension of colonization and control desires. Another example: In the USA
during the 1960s and '70s, people in pain being coerced to trust in
psychiatrists and professionalized therapists when their traditional modes of
help--independent organization--was in the midst of being broken down by COINTELPRO in the 1960s--ed])
(...)
Continuous propaganda exceeds the individual's capacities
for attention or adaptation and thus his capabilities of resistance. This trait of continuity explains why
propaganda can indulge in sudden twists and turns. (1) It is always surprising
that the content of propaganda can be so inconsistent that it can approve today what it condemned yesterday.
[(re: US friendship
with Iraq's Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, and game of hatred against him in the
'90s; or G. Bush I's infamous "Read My Lips: No New Taxes" lie--ed)]
Antonio Miotto considers this changeability of propaganda an indication of its nature. Actually it is only an indication of the grip it exerts, of the reality of its effects. We must not think that a man ceases to follow it because he is caught up in the system. Of course, he notices the change that has taken place, and he is surprised. He may even be tempted to resist...But will he then engage in a sustained effort to resist propaganda? Will he disavow his past actions? Such breaks are too painful...
note 1: The propagandist does not necessarily have to worry about coherence and unity in his claims. Claims can be varied and even contradictory, depending on the setting (for example, Goebbels promised an increase in the price of grain in the country and, at the same time, a decrease in the price of bread in the city); and the occasion (for example, Hitler's propaganda against democracy in 1936 and for democracy in 1943).
Immediately
[after the citizen questions the game] he will hear the new truth reassessed a
hundred times [in all the "reputable" media--ed], he will find it
explained and proved, and he does not have the
strength [alone] to fight against it each day...Propaganda continues
its assault without an instant's respite; his resistance is
fragmentary and sporadic. He is caught up in professional tasks and
personal preoccupations, and each time he emerges from them he hears and sees
the new truth proclaimed. The steadiness of the propaganda prevails over his
sporadic attention and makes him follow all the turns from the time he has
begun to eat of his bread [in the morning until night]. (page 19)
That
is why one cannot really speak of propaganda in connection with an election
campaign that lasts only two weeks. ...And it is true that the population is
often indifferent to election propaganda [despite the fanfare of the media and commissars--ed]. But it is not surprising that such propaganda
has little effect: none of the great techniques
of propaganda can be effective in two weeks. [Unless there's conditioning in the
background, like when the US population was hyped up to go to WWI in a very
short time, after being told complete lies about children having their arms
torn off by the Huns, etc.--ed, by way of Noam Chomsky in "Media
Control" speech, 1991]
Having
no more relation to real propaganda are the experiments often undertaken
to discover whether some propaganda method is effective on a group of
individuals being used as guinea pigs. ([i.e. recurring campaigns against smokers, camel racers in
India who kidnap kids, eccentric ladies with lots of cats, hippies, single
mothers on welfare, etc.?--ed]) Such experiments are basically vitiated by the fact that they
are of short duration. Moreover, the individual can clearly discern any
propaganda when it suddenly appears in a social environment normally not
subject to this type of influence; if one isolated item of propaganda or
one campaign appears without massive effort, the contrast is so strong that the
individual can recognize it clearly as propaganda and begin to be wary.
Other
valuable pages:
20-23, especially 24, 25, 26, 27; 28-30; 38-98; 119, 121, 123, 126,
128, 131-136; 181-188; 206-208;
The
partitioning of Groups (page 212)
All propaganda has to set off its group from
all the other groups. Here we find again the fallacious character of the
intellectual communication media (press, radio), which far from uniting people
and bringing them closer together, divide them all the more.
When
I talked about public opinion, I stressed that everybody
is susceptible to the propaganda of his group. He listens to it and
convinces himself of it. He is satisfied with it. But those who belong to another
milieu ignore it. According to an I.F.O.P. survey [French?] (No.1, 1954), everybody is satisfied with his own propaganda. Similarly,
Lazarsfeld (4), in his survey of radio broadcasts, cites the case of
programs designed to acquaint the American public with the value of the
ethnic minority groups in the American population. The point was to demonstrate
the contributions each group was making, with the purpose of promoting mutual
understanding and tolerance. The survey revealed that each broadcast was listened
to by the ethnic group in question (for example, the Irish tuned in the program
about the Irish), but rarely by anybody else. In the same way, the Communist
press is read by Communist voters, the Protestant press by Protestants [in Europe only? In America we can see
this in the alternative media, especially].
What
happens? Those who read the press of their group and listen to the radio of
their group are constantly reinforced in their allegiance. They learn more and more that their group is right,
that its actions are justified...At the same time, such propaganda
contains elements of criticism and refutation
of other groups, which will never be read or heard by a member of another group
[(except by
ideologically subservient "watchdogs" engaged in their own propaganda
campaigns, re: the Accuracy In Media (Rightist), FAIR (Leftist), etc.--ed)].
...That
the bourgeois paper Le Figaro will contain valid criticism of
and genuine facts about the dictatorship of the Soviet Union will never reach
[an individual, non-ideologically-challenged] Communist. But this criticism of
one's neighbor, which is not heard by that neighbor, is known to those inside
the group that expresses it. The anti-Communist will be constantly more
convinced of the evilness of the Communist, and vice versa. As a result,
people ignore each other more and more. They cease altogether to be open to an
exchange of reason, arguments, and points of view.
This
double foray on the part of propaganda, proving the excellence of one's own
group and the evilness of the others, produces an increasingly stringent
partitioning of our society. [And] this partitioning takes place on different
levels--a unionist partitioning, a religious partitioning, a partitioning of
political parties or classes; beyond that, a partitioning of nations, and, at
the summit, a partitioning of blocs of nations ([re: NATO vs. OPEC--ed]). But this diversity of levels and
objectives in no way changes the basic law, according to which the more propaganda there is, the more partitioning
there is. For propaganda suppresses conversation; the man
opposite is no longer an interlocutor but an enemy. And to the extent he
rejects that role, the other becomes an unknown whose words can no longer be
understood.
Thus,
we see before our eyes how a world of closed minds establishes itself, a world
in which...everybody constantly reviews his own certainty about himself and the
wrongs done him by the Others--a world in which nobody listens to anybody else,
everybody talks, nobody listens. And the more one talks, the more one isolates
oneself, because the more one accuses others and justifies oneself.
One
must not think, incidentally, that such partitioning is in conflict with the
formation of public opinion. Although propaganda partitions society, it affects
opinion and transcends the groups in which it operates. In the first
place, it maintains its effectiveness toward the mass of undecided who do not
yet belong to a group. Then, too, it is possible to affect those who belong to
a group o f a different sort: for example, Communist propaganda that will not
affect militant Socialists might affect Protestants; American propaganda that
will not affect a Frenchman in his capacity as a Frenchman, might influence him
with regard to capitalism or the liberal system.
This
is particularly important because there is a difference of level between the
groups. For example, the nationalist propaganda results in building a barrier
against other nations; however, domestically, it respects the isolation of
inferior groups, but still affects them by making them join a common collective
movement [(i.e. "patriotism"--ed)]. This is a process comparable to
that occurring in the Middle Ages when Christian ideology expanded in the
society but in no way affected the aristocracy or the religious orders.
A
national propaganda is perfectly effective inside a nation and changes public
opinion, whereas party propaganda or religious propaganda is effective on
another plane--each having the power to modify public opinion on a certain
level and to produce a sociological partitioning on another. But only a
superior group can affect other groups. (...)
A
well-organized propaganda will work with all these different elements. This
explains the duality of some propagandas, for example, in the U.S.S.R.: on one
side, in the papers with large circulation, or on the radio, one finds only
ecstatic praise of the regime or vague criticism of it, designed to satisfy the
public, but without basis in reality [(i.e. in the US rural Southwest, there's a popular belief
cropping up that political leaders are alien lizards called "Dracs")].
On
the other side, we find extremely violent, specific, and profound criticism in specialized
periodicals--for example, in medical journals or magazines on city-planning. If
one really wants to know and understand the shortcomings of the Soviet regime,
one can find a mine of precise and impartial information in these magazines.
How
can such a duality be tolerated? It can be explained only by partitioning. One
must tell the public about the grandeur of the regime and the excellence of the
USSR; the public must be made to understand this even in the face of contrary
personal experience, either to dissociate the individual or to convince him that
his personal experience is only an accident without meaning. Such propaganda
(directed to the masses), therefore, can only be positive.
Conversely,
the violent critical propaganda addressed to technicians in specialized
periodicals aims at showing the Party's vigilance, its knowledge of detail, it
centralized control, its demand for Communist perfection. It is aimed at the
mass of technicians, broken up into groups of specialists. Such
propaganda asserts that the regime is excellent, that all services are working
very well, except...the service in question--medical for the doctors, and so
on.
How
is such duality possible? Precisely by virtue of the
partitioning of society, which is to
such a large extent propaganda's work. Because one knows that the
doctor will not read a magazine on city-planning, and because one knows that
the public at large will not read any of the specialized journals, and because
one knows that the Ukrainians will not read Georgian newspapers, one can,
according to necessity, make contradictory assertions in any and all of them.
([similar to knowing the US public isn't going to read the UK media, and thus
they have a lot of criticism and exposes of US foreign policy; nor the Journal
of the American Medical Association (JAMA), where they sometimes write
critically of psychiatrists like John Kellogg, and such things--ed.])
(...)
See
also pages 218, 219; Propaganda and Democracy: 232-235; 244, 245; 247,
249,251; ([Ed: The internet as possible Trojan Horse (thus need to utilize
privacy software; Internet DID begin as a military project)]: 307,
308:
Since 1949:
...we must remember the--incidentally quite remarkable--method of the
"Hundred Flowers." As in Nazi Germany in 1943 (3), there was a period
of apparent liberalism when expressions of all sort of criticism, deviationism,
idealistic and religious inclinations, and so on, were tolerated, authorized,
even encouraged. Then, after all opponents had spoken, the wave of repression
hit them: arrests, jail sentences, and, above all, political re-education took
place. The purpose of the "Hundred Flowers Campaign" was to make
opponents come out in the open so they could be arrested and eliminated...
note 3: A liberalization of the regime's press at the end of 1934 was designed to make opponents reveal themselves ([No other information given on this; who designed? Are there other precedents of this kind of thing in history besides the infamous Trojan Horse?--ed])
Even
a propaganda centered on education cannot do without terror. In order to arrive
at full compliance with propaganda, the 7
percent "incorrigible" individualists must be eliminated. The
objective of Mao's propaganda is a double one: to integrate individuals into
the new body politic as deeply as possible, and, at the same time, to detach
them from the old groups, such as the family or traditional organizations.
These groups must be disintegrated, always through action from within [(re: COINTELPRO, and it's much thriving
and now legal offspring)]. (...)
page 308, 309; 312, 313. back to main index