Up to this point, I have considered the isolated self as a phenomenon understood on the basis of hardening theoretical frameworks situated within the more general landscape of the contemporary struggle to communicate. The quest for certainty and calm in a world marked by historic levels of uncertainty and anxiety–as witnessed by the work of Erich Fromm and Jacques Ellul–has helped elucidate some of the psychological basis, or impetus, behind the emergence of this phenomenon.1 Perhaps equally important is the commodification of rational-critical debate, as explored by Jürgen Habermas, which has become more pronounced today than ever before. Taken together, both help shed necessary light on the emergence and continued endurance of the isolated self and the factionalism it gives rise to.2 But the picture I am attempting to paint in these essays will not be complete until a proper consideration of propaganda has taken place.3 Indeed, everything that has been said up to now has laid the groundwork for an understanding of propaganda, which will further bring into contrast the problem that we, as a society, face. In so doing, Jacques Ellul’s work on the subject will be my primary resource, especially when considered in light of the relatively recent development of the internet.
When Alasdair MacIntyre said that contemporary debate has become “necessarily barren”, characterized by “assertion and counterassertion”, and that ultimately “[n]onrational persuasion displaces rational argument”, he was talking about the state of rational-critical debate in the public sphere.4 This has, in part, resulted from the ever-expanding scope and quantity of possible theoretical frameworks, which has eroded the common ground of mutual understanding.5 What this means is that the common stock of ideas, definitions, concepts, and so forth–the basis for mutual understanding and meaningful discussion–has expanded to such an extent that mutual understanding itself has become increasingly difficult to achieve. Thus, persuasion is achieved by direct appeal to the theoretical frameworks of individuals rather than through a process of rational-critical debate rooted in shared understandings.6 This is commonly accomplished via the mass media of the press, TV, radio, and more recently, the internet–together disseminating the vast majority of “public debate”. It is at this level that we find the commodification of rational-critical debate; opinions ready-made to consume.7
In many ways, the “higher level” public debate has spilled over, penetrated, into the “lower level” personal debate which takes place in the private sphere where individuals engage each other directly. The ready-made or commodified opinion of the press, the internet, TV and radio, is thus consumed by a public made up of individuals that pick and choose what they believe and who they listen to.8 The positions advanced in debates taking place in the press, on the internet, TV and radio, are adopted, taken in, “consumed”, and are then (with varying degrees of understanding) parroted back to others as if they were arrived at independently. This is the point of contact where struggles to communicate occur, often devolving into breakdowns and eventually failures–the springboard of the isolated self and its corresponding factionalism.9
The internet is perhaps worth exploring further, since it indeed constitutes a “world” of its own, situated within the larger backdrop of the human world.10 In many ways the internet has transformed the “lower level” of personal debate between individuals into a platform where it increasingly resembles the “higher level” public debate of the mass media. That is, debates between individuals taking place online (via blogs, social media, etc.) become imbued with a kind of status that seems to be understood as both informed and authoritative. In this way, the internet offers its own peculiar commodification of rational-critical debate, creating its own buffet of ready-made opinions. This may have something to do with the internet being removed from our direct experience, taking on a third-person or “objective” dimension (similar to the press, TV, and radio). Yet at the same time many forms of internet media simultaneously maintain a first-person account, i.e., direct reporting from individuals to an audience (you and me) about what they allegedly have seen and heard and know. This is often portrayed as something like “the real truth”, and contributes to the narrative that older media forms (press, TV, radio) are at best corrupt, or at worst, nothing but lies.
What is no doubt the case is that the commodification of rational-critical debate has played a major role in the emergence of propaganda. Habermas himself attests to this when he writes that originally “publicity guaranteed the connection between rational-critical public debate and the legislative foundation of domination, including the critical supervision of its exercise. Now it makes possible the peculiar ambivalence of a domination exercised through the domination of nonpublic opinion: it serves the manipulation of the public as much as legitimation before it. Critical publicity is supplanted by manipulative publicity.”11 This mirrors MacIntyre’s observation that, in the public sphere, “[n]onrational persuasion displaces rational argument”.12 In his book, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, MacIntyre goes on to say that “in a society in which preferences, whether in the market or in politics or in private life, are assigned the place which they have in a liberal order, power lies with those who are able to determine what the alternatives are to be between which choices will be available. The consumer, the voter, and the individual in general are accorded the right of expressing their preferences for one or more out of the alternatives which they are offered, but the range of possible alternatives is controlled by an elite, and how they are presented is also so controlled. The ruling elites within liberalism are thus bound to value highly competence in the persuasive presentation of alternatives, that is, in the cosmetic arts.”13 It seems to me that the “cosmetic arts”–or the “art of appearances”–are–along with Habermas’ “manipulative publicity”–conceptually on par with a general understanding of propaganda.
But both MacIntyre and Habermas are dealing with instances of what Jacques Ellul has called classic or political propaganda.14 In his book, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, Jacques Ellul cites this propaganda when he writes that a “common view of propaganda is that it is the work of a few evil men, seducers of the people, cheats and authoritarian rulers who want to dominate a population; that it is the handmaiden of more or less illegitimate powers. This view always thinks of propaganda as being made voluntarily; it assumes that a man decides ‘to make propaganda,’ that a government establishes a Propaganda Ministry, and that things just develop from there on. According to this view, the public is just an object, a passive crowd that one can manipulate, influence, and use. And this notion is held not only by those who think one can manipulate the crowds but also by those who think propaganda is not very effective and can be resisted easily.”15 Thus, classic or political propaganda is a kind of “top-down” or vertical model. And although it describes what most of us think when we hear the word–such as that associated with Nazi Germany, Joseph Goebbels, et al.–it is not what I would like to primarily focus on in this essay. To be sure, this form of propaganda continues to exercise a great amount of power today, but in my view the emergence of what Ellul calls “sociological propaganda” is far more alarming and dangerous, particularly since the advent of the internet.16
“To understand that propaganda is not just a deliberate and more or less arbitrary creation by some people in power is therefore essential. It is strictly a sociological phenomenon, in the sense that it has its roots and reasons in the need of the group that will sustain it.”17 In contrast to the “top-down” or vertical model of political propaganda, sociological propaganda is a “bottom-up” or horizontal phenomenon. Ellul continues, “Sociological propaganda is a phenomenon much more difficult to grasp than political propaganda, and is rarely discussed. Basically it is the penetration of an ideology by means of its sociological context. This phenomenon is the reverse of what we have been studying up to now. Propaganda as it is traditionally known implies an attempt to spread an ideology through the mass media of communication in order to lead the public to accept some political or economic structure or to participate in some action. […] But in sociological propaganda the movement is reversed. The existing economic, political, and sociological factors progressively allow an ideology to penetrate individuals or masses. Through the medium of economic and political structures a certain ideology is established, which leads to the active participation of the masses and the adaptation of individuals. The important thing is to make the individual participate actively and to adapt him as much as possible to a specific sociological context.”18 “This propaganda may be called horizontal because it is made inside the group (not from the top), where, in principle, all individuals are equal and there is no leader. The individual makes contact with others at his own level rather than with a leader; such propaganda therefore always seeks ‘conscious adherence.’ Its content is presented in didactic fashion and addressed to the intelligence. The leader, the propagandist, is there only as a sort of animator or discussion leader; sometimes his presence and his identity are not even known”.19
If my understanding of Ellul is correct, sociological propaganda is far subtler and more nuanced than political propaganda, emerging spontaneously and organically from within a given social context. In this way, its growth and development is not obvious, and those individuals engaged in its propagation and consumption do so without consciousness of it as a form of “propaganda”. In an early example, Ellul describes one form of sociological propaganda as a result of “the extent that the combination of advertising, public relations, social welfare, and so on produces a certain general conception of society, a particular way of life.”20 This leads the individual to believe “that those who live this way are on the side of the angels, and those who don’t are bad; those who have this conception of society are right, and those who have another conception are in error.”21 “What starts out as a simple situation gradually turns into a definite ideology, because the way of life in which man thinks he is so indisputably well off becomes a criterion of value for him. This does not mean that objectively he is well off, but that, regardless of the merits of his actual condition, he thinks he is. He is perfectly adapted to his environment, like ‘a fish in water.’ From that moment on, everything that expresses this particular way of life, that reinforces and improves it, is good; everything that tends to disturb, criticize, or destroy it is bad. This leads people to believe that the civilization representing their way of life is best.”22 What I am hoping to show with this example is the mechanism through which sociological propaganda works, that is, as a spontaneous, unpremeditated, and leaderless phenomenon. In America, this should be fairly easy to grasp, since many of us–particularly older generations–were raised with a certain understanding of “American exceptionalism” or the “American Way of Life”. And although at times political propaganda has overlapped with this more general phenomenon (such as during the Cold War with the Soviet Union), its primary mechanism was not political but social.
But the monolithic and homogeneous picture of society that is offered here is largely a myth. In fact, America is made up of innumerable groups, each developing their own paradigms and viewpoints, each to a lesser or greater extent coming to believe that, within their group, the “best way of life” is represented.23 Thus, sociological propaganda reinforces the heterogeneity of modern society, for in the past what took place on a societal level now often takes place on the level of individuals come together as groups. What I would like to suggest is that through the relatively recent emergence of the internet, sociological propaganda has become even more widespread and powerful.
The commodification of rational-critical debate in the traditional mass media (press, TV, radio) was a necessary yet not sufficient step in the development of sociological propaganda (though it may have been sufficient for political propaganda). But with the advent of the internet the (virtual) published word became increasingly democratized; accessible by literally billions of people. For the first time in human history, anyone could say anything, and everyone could hear it.24 This, of course, is an abstraction; access to the internet is always localized, and “seeing” or “comprehending” it all, at once, far exceeds human capability. The point, rather, is that when access to the internet is obtained, whoever has that access has a voice that can potentially be “heard around the world”. Predictably, just as humans gather together in light of shared interests and associations when they are “offline”–and develop viewpoints about the “best way of life” unique to their group–they do the same thing once they are “plugged in”. Hence, at least in its early stages, the landscape of the internet mirrored much of the human world in a uniquely virtual way. Being made and “populated” by human beings, it simply reflected the multiplicities of the human condition. But with the growth of the internet, and the development of new virtual technologies–like smartphones and social media–it became an autonomous world unto itself. In this way, the internet has played a dramatic role in propagating what Ellul has identified as sociological propaganda. That is, the infinite ideological neighborhoods of the internet serve as a means by which a sociological context–virtual, but no less powerful–comes to penetrate the thinking of individuals in the form of virtual (commodified) rational-critical debate. The massive virtual expanse becomes inhabited by individuals come together, loyal to the ideological group or groups they associate or identify with.25 As members of a group, they are constantly reinforced in their views. Engagements with other individuals (members of rival groups) become increasingly shrill and irrational. As I noted in Part I, the “trenches dividing individuals and groups become deeper; the psychological distance between them, wider; self-questioning atrophies, certainty soars.”
Sociological propaganda on the internet emerges in a multiplicity of forms. Personal posts and debates on social media, message boards, personal websites and blogs, essays and articles published by large or small media organizations, YouTube channels, TikTok videos, and on and on.26 What appears most important is to acclimate individuals to a specific sociological context that ultimately and over time impresses ideas upon them, such that they are taken in and adopted as their own. And such ideas are not the result of a carefully formed opinion; they result from the consumption of ready-made opinions existing through a given sociological context.
Moreover, the effect of propaganda on the psyche of the individual appears to be difficult to overstate, as does its overall impact on society. Among many other things, it resolves inner conflicts and anxieties, it provides a feeling of importance and righteousness, it gives permission to act, it extinguishes critical judgment (and thus the possibility for rational-critical debate), and thereby partitions society and turns one’s fellows into enemies. To help complete this picture, I will quote Jacques Ellul at length in what follows. (As a reminder, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, was published in 1965.)
“Man, eager for self-justification, throws himself in the direction of a propaganda that justifies him and thus eliminates one of the sources of his anxiety. Propaganda dissolves contradictions and restores to man a unitary world in which the demands are in accord with the facts. It gives man a clear and simple call to action that takes precedence over all else. It permits him to participate in the world around him without being in conflict with it, because the action he has been called upon to perform will surely remove all obstacles from the path of realizing the proclaimed ideal. Here, propaganda plays a completely idealistic role, by involving a man caught in the world of reality and making him live by anticipation in a world based on principle. From then on man no longer sees contradiction as a threat to himself or as a distortion of his personality: the contradiction, through propaganda, becomes an active source of conquest and combat. He is no longer alone when trying to solve his conflicts, but is plunged into a collective on the march, which is always ‘at the point’ of solving all conflicts and leading man and his world to a satisfying monism.”27 “It hands him a key with which he can open all doors; there is no more mystery; everything can be explained, thanks to propaganda. It gives him special glasses through which he can look at present-day history and clearly understand what it means. It hands him a guide line with which he can recover the general line running through all incoherent events. Now the world ceases to be menacing. The propagandee experiences feelings of mastery over and lucidity toward this menacing and chaotic world, all the more because propaganda provides him with a solution for all threats and a posture to assume in the face of them.”28
“Though a mass instrument, it addresses itself to each individual. It appeals to me. It appeals to my common sense, my desires, and provokes my wrath and my indignation. It evokes my feelings of justice and my desire for freedom. It gives me violent feelings, which lift me out of the daily grind. As soon as I have been politicized by propaganda, I can from my heights look down on daily trifles. My boss, who does not share my convictions, is merely a poor fool, a prey to the illusions of an evil world. I take my revenge upon him by being enlightened; I have understood the situation and know what ought to be done; I hold the key to events and am involved in dangerous and exciting activities. This feeling will be all the stronger when propaganda appeals to my decision and seems to be greatly concerned with my action. ‘Everything is in the clutches of evil. There is a way out. But only if everybody participates. You must participate. If you don’t, all will be lost through your fault.’ This is the feeling propaganda must generate. My opinion, which society once scorned, now becomes important and decisive. No longer has it importance only for me, but also for the whole range of political affairs and the entire social body. A voter may well feel that his vote has no importance or value. But propaganda demonstrates that the action in which it involves us is of fundamental importance, and that everything depends on me. It boosts my ego by giving me a strong sense of my responsibility; it leads me to assume a posture of authority among my fellows, makes me take myself seriously by appealing to me in impassioned tones, with total conviction, and gives me the feeling that it’s a question of All or Nothing. Thanks to such propaganda, the diminished individual obtains the very satisfaction he needs.”29
“[T]hese collective beliefs, which the individual assumes to be his own, these scales of values and stereotypes, which play only a small part in the psychological life of a person unaffected by propaganda, become big and important; by the process of crystallization, these images begin to occupy a person’s entire consciousness, and to push out other feelings and judgments. All truly personal activity on the part of the individual is diminished, and man finally is filled with nothing but these prejudices and beliefs around which all else revolves. In his personal life, man will eventually judge everything by such crystalized standards. But whereas his ordinary justifications are fragile and may always be open to doubts, those furnished by propaganda are irrefutable and solid. The individual believes them and considers them to be eternal truths. He can throw off all sense of guilt; he loses all feeling for the harm he might do, all sense of responsibility other than the responsibility propaganda instills in him. Thus he becomes perfectly adapted to objective situations and nothing can create a split in him. Through such a process of intense rationalization, propaganda builds monolithic individuals. It eliminates inner conflicts, tensions, self-criticism, self-doubt. And in this fashion it also builds a one-dimensional being without depth or range of possibilities. Such an individual will have rationalizations not only for past actions, but for the future as well. He marches forward with full assurance of his righteousness. He is formidable in his equilibrium, all the more so because it is very difficult to break his hardness of justifications.”30 “At the same time, this crystallization closes his mind to all new ideas. The individual now has a set of prejudices and beliefs, as well as objective justifications. His entire personality now revolves around those elements. Every new idea will therefore be troublesome to his entire being. He will defend himself against it because it threatens to destroy his certainties. He thus actually comes to hate everything opposed to what propaganda has made him acquire.”31
“[P]ropaganda makes disappear […] [e]verything in the nature of critical and personal judgment. Obviously, propaganda limits the application of thought. It limits the propagandee’s field of thought to the extent that it provides him with ready-made […] thoughts and stereotypes. It orients him toward very limited ends and prevents him from using his mind or experimenting on his own. It determines the core from which all his thoughts must derive and draws from the beginning a sort of guideline that permits neither criticism nor imagination. More precisely, his imagination will lead only to small digressions from the fixed line and to only slightly deviant, preliminary responses within the framework.”32 “The acceptance of this line, of such ends and limitations, presupposes the suppression of all critical judgment, which in turn is a result of the crystallization of thoughts and attitudes and the creation of taboos. […] The individual can no longer judge for himself because he inescapably relates his thoughts to the entire complex of values and prejudices established by propaganda. […] What the individual loses is never easy to revive. Once personal judgment and critical faculties have disappeared or have been atrophied, they will not simply reappear when propaganda has been suppressed. In fact, we are dealing here with one of propaganda’s most durable effects: years of intellectual and spiritual education would be needed to restore such faculties. The propagandee, if deprived of one propaganda, will immediately adopt another; this will spare him the agony of finding himself vis-à-vis some event without a ready-made opinion, and obliged to judge it for himself.”33
“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; thus their beliefs are strengthened. 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. […] As a result, people ignore each other more and more. They cease altogether to be open to an exchange of reason, arguments, 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. 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. 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 that 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 talks to himself, everybody constantly reviews his own certainty about himself and the wrongs done him by the Others–a world in which nobody listens to anybody, everybody talks, and nobody listens. And the more one talks, the more one isolates oneself, because the more one accuses others and justifies oneself.”34
Now, I don’t know about you, but when it slowly began to dawn on me just how big of a problem this is–it was like the experience of gazing deeper and deeper into a Mandelbrot set.35 Here I am thinking specifically of the phenomenon of sociological propaganda emerging via the media of the internet in all its forms. Individuals make contact with each other directly in what may at first appear a form of rational-critical debate, but is actually a process of mutual reinforcement. Participants are conscious of their involvement, engaged in intelligent and didactic communication. This process creates a sociological context through which others come to adopt similar ideas, solutions, and aspirations, culminating in the factionalism of the isolated self. As Ellul confirms, “Only in speaking will the individual gradually discover his own convictions (which also will be those of the group), become irrevocably involved, and help others to form their opinions (which are identical). Each individual helps to form the opinion of the group, but the group helps each individual to discover the correct line.”36 The resulting factionalism ensures that no (or very few) genuine attempts are made to engage rival individuals or groups–those holding differing viewpoints. But a given group’s “refusal to examine and question ideas other than their own is characteristic of their condition.”37 They have become bound by chains of their own making, by propaganda they themselves have brought into being. And fault cannot be laid at the feet of an evil genius, manipulating people behind the scenes–the problem, rather, is with society itself.
Notes:
1. See Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom, and Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society and Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes.
2. See also my recent essays, Theoretical Frameworks and the Limits of Communication, The Isolated Self and the Limits of Communication, Part I, and The Isolated Self and the Limits of Communication, Part II.
3. My use of the word “complete” is only accurate in a relative sense, since the picture I am attempting to paint of this phenomenon will never be complete in the sense that there is nothing more to say. In fact, I hesitated for some time to write this essay, as the topic being introduced (propaganda) was larger and more complex than I had first assumed. And since I could take it in what seemed like a thousand directions, I was unsure of how to proceed. Ultimately, I decided to simplify my focus and confine myself to only what directly contributes to the narrative of the “isolated self” as it has developed in these essays. That being said, in the future I may continue my explorations of propaganda in other ways.
4. See Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, p 343.
5. This phenomenon appears to be closely bound up with the structure of liberalism itself. I spoke briefly of this in my essay, Theoretical Frameworks and the Limits of Communication, and to a slightly fuller extent in The Good, Liberalism, and the Role of Preferences. Also, the rise of printing was likely a necessary factor. My essay, Some Further Thoughts on Modern Education, may also be relevant.
6. To be sure, this is merely one aspect of a much more complicated picture. Here I would direct the interested reader to the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. Specifically, his books, After Virtue, and Whose Justice? Which Rationality? In fairness, I would add that it is very difficult for many people to form an educated opinion of their own today. This, it seems, is mostly due to the constraints placed upon them–especially upon their time–by working life. Leisure activities have also been transformed–deep reading and reflection, and debate in the Social sphere have been replaced by consumer activities. In light of this, it seems that most people have no known alternatives but to consume ready-made opinions on the basis of their own theoretical frameworks.
7. For a more thorough explanation of what I mean, see my essay, The Isolated Self and the Limits of Communication, Part II.
8. Again, on the basis of their own respective theoretical frameworks.
9. There are basic ways to try to explain this. One is that differing “public” positions are necessarily derived from differing theoretical frameworks, which leads us back to the basic problem of my essay, Theoretical Frameworks and the Limits of Communication. When such “public” positions are adopted, taken in, “consumed”, the individual becomes bound to the theoretical framework entailed by the position, often without realizing it. The ensuing confusion of “lower level” debate is thus, most fundamentally, a confusion of unacknowledged or unexamined theoretical frameworks. This is exactly why the commodification of rational-critical debate has become a major problem–people increasingly adopt views that they know very little about, as well as alienate each other when they disagree.
10. I would include smartphone technologies, apps, etc., as part of the internet. The “world” of the internet also seems to be becoming autonomous. Another topic for the future, perhaps.
11. See Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, p 178. Emphasis in original.
12. See Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, p 343.
13. Ibid, p 345.
14. See Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes.
15. Ibid, p 118.
16. I do not wish to discount the problem of political propaganda–it has been and remains a factor that still yields influence today and contributes to many of our societal frustrations (notwithstanding the number of Americans who would be shocked by this). Rather, I would like to approach political propaganda as part of the overall problem of this essay, but with a secondary role to that of sociological propaganda.
17. See Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, p 121.
18. Ibid, p 63-64. Emphasis in original.
19. Ibid, p 81.
20. Ibid, p 65.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid, p 67. Emphasis in original.
It should be admitted that the impulse this plays on is likely as old as humanity. Perhaps the most popular example is the elitism of Athens in ancient Greece. Am I saying that the Greek attitude toward the “barbarian” was the result of propaganda, sociological or otherwise? No, I don’t think so. Mainly because it seems that one of the necessary conditions of propaganda is the commodification of rational-critical debate. There are also enormous societal differences between us and the ancient Greeks, such as that we are a “mass society” and the Greeks were not. This is a fine distinction, to be sure. But exploring it further will, for the time being, have to be postponed.
23. Or, in the case of conversion (political, religious, et al.), that of a different group appears more desirable.
24. At least potentially. I realize this is slightly dramatic, as there are limits. For example, not everyone is looking at the same thing at the same time, not everyone has access to the internet, not everyone speaks the same language, etc.
25. By “group” I simply mean other people or media who adopt a shared viewpoint. Groups, it seems, can be almost infinitely diverse; they can be political, economic, religious, et al., or some combination thereof. They can be united by an organized or disorganized ideology, come together over a specific branded consumer item, or protest against things like circumcision, and so forth.
26. Perhaps the most common example of sociological propaganda is the internet meme, especially those with political, economic, or religious intent. An internet meme is a peculiar form of commodified debate, but, to be sure, its popularity highlights a low-point of (virtual) social interaction. Memes are not arguments, but they fulfill the role of an argument in that they compel my immediate assent or dissent. They appeal directly to my theoretical framework and serve a reinforcing or threatening function (depending on whether or not I agree with them). If reinforcing, I am assured my group is right; if threatening, I am revolted by an opinion different from my own (maybe I “block” or “unfriend” the poster?). Memes are an interesting example because they encapsulate sociological propaganda so well, though I am unsure how threatening they are in the wider scope of things. Still, their primary function seems to be one of reassurance that my group is right, and others are wrong.
27. See Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, p 159.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid, p 150.
30. Ibid, p 164-165.
31. Ibid, p 166.
32. Ibid, p 169. Emphasis in original.
33. Ibid, p 169-170.
34. Ibid, p 213-214. Emphasis in original.
35. I apologize to any mathematicians who may be insulted by this. Still, the idea of something that has the power described above–a power over the mind–yet without a “mastermind” behind the scenes, pulling strings and moving world events; autonomous yet anonymous–is perhaps among the most terrifying things I have thought about.
36. See Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, p 81.
37. Ibid, p 166.