Civics: On Propaganda
“It is impossible to overstate how wrong BLM and reform activists were on this count.” I have been a successful propagandist, and I have thoughts about this.
Believing your own propaganda too much is risky even when it’s true, and extremely dangerous when it’s false. This is a chronic problem with left-wing propaganda. In an ideal world, or at least an ideal world from the point of view of a left-wing organizer, propaganda would usefully deceive and demoralize everyone outside the movement while the movement itself remains in contact with reality. But it doesn’t work that way. Really skillful propaganda has the emotional hooks to deceive everybody, including your own people. This divorces them from reality and sets them up for rude shocks when the divorce is no longer deniable. I never had this problem, because all of my propaganda was written to make the truth attractive to people who had previous incentives to reject it, rather than peddling a lie. Even so, I knew I had to remain skeptical of my own assertions in order to avoid veering off into cloud-cuckoo-land.
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Readers might enjoy a virtual visit to the Shanghai Propaganda Art Museum in the amuz app.
