Propaganda Antidote

[Walker]

They've been protected by censorship and propaganda for too long.

It’s about damn time somebody did something about these criminals, even if it is only a civil suit.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/t ... t-n1179153

[Walker]

DO you think telling political lies, slander, false accusations and insults towards your political opponants are acceptible?

It's not acceptable when the insulted cannot answer to the same audience because of censorship, which doesn't mean a brief, slanted retraction buried somewhere in the NY Times.

Otherwise, sticks and stones may break my ... (you know the rest of the childhood indoctrination.)

Far more dangerous to put a biased hack in charge of determining the lies, for other people.

When two folks speak the same truth, this does not mean that one is imitating the other.

These delusions account for millions of suseptible Americans, who not only are a danger to themselves but a danger to everyone they meet.

Government schools that indoctrinate rather than educate are responsible for such danger. Fresh young faces are being released into the wild ill-prepared to defend themselves against propaganda.

[henry quirk]

nah...I'm just a pure soul

[Walker]

A bit of purification is good for the soul, 'specially after Saturday night.

[henry quirk]

A bit of purification is good for the soul, 'specially after Saturday night.

purification: hair of the dog?

[Immanuel Can]

Government schools that indoctrinate rather than educate are responsible for such danger. Fresh young faces are being released into the wild ill-prepared to defend themselves against propaganda.

Defend themselves? Of course not.

Being soaked in Relativistic propaganda is not just a poor preparation for critical thinking...it's indoctrination in the opposite, in stupefied credulity and in the inability to detect the relative truth value of propositions. Everything, not matter how crazy, looks like "just another point of view," because the kids have already been taught the one absolute they are taught -- "Thou shalt absolutely not call anybody else 'wrong.' Ever. It's rude and judgmental."

In other words, they are actively trained in NOT being discerning. They are actively confused, and actively shamed into fearing to interrogate anything.

Why? Because like the "Prime Directive" in Star Trek, there is one directive all public schooling cherishes above all: that nobody shall fight. This is because they are trying to manage large groups of very disparate people, and want them all to remain cooperative, docile and "educable." So they make them all the same confused, uncommitted, uncritical, and misinformed thing.

I know that's true. I've seen it for many, many years, and from a perspective most people are simply incapable of seeing it, because they don't get to see all sides of the public school functioning the way I have. But trust me: it's ubiquitous, deliberate, adamant and very intentional in public education.

[Skip]

[Skip: propaganda means (explicitly, not implicitly) a deliberate, co-ordinated campaign of transmitting information to an audience, where the information is selected, organized, slanted, distorted, falsified, emotionally weighted, packaged and presented in such a way as to persuade the audience of a belief favourable to interests of the purveyor]
So... you have described any philosophy.

What is the benefit to Socrates of insisting on the examination of ideas? What does Schopenhauer get out of characterizing the phenomenal world as the product of a blind and insatiable metaphysical will? How have they co-ordinated and slanted these communications to persuade the public to do what for them?

Humans communicate using language.

Partly.

Language is incomplete and is fundamentally about compression and omission

No. It's fundamentally about using verbal symbols to represent persons, locations, things, actions, events and ideas.

"importance" is always slanted, distorted and emotionally weighted.

Show me how in the following examples I attempt to persuade whom to do what for me:
Balls are round.
100 C or 212 F.
a daffodil
Hello

The truth which you've chosen to include at the expense of the truth which you've chosen to omit is always amplified through your own volition.

Or maybe a function of function. If the question was "Which of these toys are balls?", it wouldn't be useful to the interlocutor (possibly someone who is uncertain of English) to tell him everything about oceanography. If he waved "Hi!", he's not asking for a lecture on graphite production; he only wants a return greeting.
Including everything is always impossible anyway; in no situation is it necessary to include information on extraneous subjects, even if we lived long enough.
OTH, including and excluding specific relevant information on the topic under consideration serves a purpose. When the purpose it serves is to fill in gaps in the audience's knowledge, it's education; when it responds to a point of interest the audience has expressed, it's conversation. When it distorts the news to convey a false version of events, it's propaganda.

[ British war-time propaganda can be considered "positive" - is still propaganda.
[ intellectual output of Nietzsche is not propaganda even though parts ...could be used in a propaganda campaign.]
Why do you draw this distinction?

Because you seem unclear on the concept.

Are you suggesting that Nietzsche had no goal/intent in producing intellectual output?

He wasn't trying to lead Germany to war, i don't think.

You seem to be suggesting that Nietzsche wasn't "deliberately, transmitting information to an audience, where the information is selected, organized, slanted, distorted, falsified, emotionally weighted and presented in such a way as to persuade the audience of a belief favourable to the interests of the purveyor"?

Yes. I think he tried his damnedest to minimize distortion, but didn't much care who believed him.

You've robbed Nietzsche of his volition.

No. I attributed more honourable motives to his writing than you do.

[Lacewing]

When two folks speak the same truth, this does not mean that one is imitating the other.

"Same truth" = what they agree on, yes?

Of course people tend to feel validated and empowered by jumping on bandwagons (large or small) that inspire or align with their own thinking. As if the more people who believe something, the more it must surely be true. But clearly, herd mentality is full of falseness -- and the larger the herd, the greater the control to manipulate and distort and to follow/support blindly without thinking beyond it.

Those who habitually peddle herd misinformation are pawns of, and for, such ignorance, as well as being in service to their own egos/identities by demonstrating that they believe themselves to be exceptionally gifted in distinguishing "truth" as it applies to all. Yet, their skewed and limited sight/thinking is obvious (to those not similarly intoxicated) as is their desperately childish posturing with threats (whether with rage or guns or religion, etc.).

[Lacewing]

this place is a free zone

You think freedom means truth?

what?

I had said this:

it's astounding how much crap some people are believing and repeating... often echoing the SAME EXACT PHRASES as if they're completely brainwashed or hypnotized, and as if they're incapable of questioning or perceiving anything for themselves in broader terms.

Unfortunately, this forum has been degraded by volumes of it.

I guess you see the freedom to degrade this forum as more important than truth -- since you use the forum as a personal "my space page" for excessively blasting the distorted propaganda you are intoxicated with, rather than engaging in philosophical discussion.

[commonsense]

By “propaganda” I mean lies.

Insufficient. There all kinds of lies. Propaganda is a very particular kind of communication package - not necessarily or exclusively lies - aimed at a specific audience for a specific purpose.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/propaganda
Before you can study a phenomenon to useful effect, you must first understand what it is. Before you can counteract it, you must understand how it works.

This is certainly so. Looking at the Brittanica description:

Propaganda, dissemination of information—facts, arguments, rumours, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion.

Being charitable, I read into the OP's question as being how to avoid being influenced, and avoid having whole communities influenced, by propaganda that leads to false foundations for action, and to not be perturbed by that propaganda that is more benign or even beneficial.

Thank you, DD, for being charitable. I wish I had expressed as the OP as you have done here.

[commonsense]

When two folks speak the same truth, this does not mean that one is imitating the other.

"Same truth" = what they agree on, yes?

Of course people tend to feel validated and empowered by jumping on bandwagons (large or small) that inspire or align with their own thinking. As if the more people who believe something, the more it must surely be true. But clearly, herd mentality is full of falseness -- and the larger the herd, the greater the control to manipulate and distort and to follow/support blindly without thinking beyond it.

Those who habitually peddle herd misinformation are pawns of, and for, such ignorance, as well as being in service to their own egos/identities by demonstrating that they believe themselves to be exceptionally gifted in distinguishing "truth" as it applies to all. Yet, their skewed and limited sight/thinking is obvious (to those not similarly intoxicated) as is their desperately childish posturing with threats (whether with rage or guns or religion, etc.).

Well said.

[commonsense]

Out of the preceding posts in this thread, I recall the implication that since each individual is the gatekeeper of his own mind, the way to combat propaganda is for all individuals to critically evaluate their beliefs.

I see difficulties with such an approach, but nonetheless I want to know more importantly whether anyone has/had other strategies to neutralize or prevent the effects of propaganda.

[henry quirk]

You think freedom means truth?

what?

I had said this:

it's astounding how much crap some people are believing and repeating... often echoing the SAME EXACT PHRASES as if they're completely brainwashed or hypnotized, and as if they're incapable of questioning or perceiving anything for themselves in broader terms.

Unfortunately, this forum has been degraded by volumes of it.

I guess you see the freedom to degrade this forum as more important than truth -- since you use the forum as a personal "my space page" for excessively blasting the distorted propaganda you are intoxicated with, rather than engaging in philosophical discussion.

I guess you find freedom degradin'...'splains a lot

[RCSaunders]

Do you think there ought to be no boundaries to what people can say and do? DO you think telling political lies, slander, false accusations and insults towards your political opponants are acceptible?

Not sure what, "acceptable," means. Those the slander and false accusations and insults are about certainly won't, "accept," them, and those who use such tactics are ignorant ignorant and evile. But they are only words. No one has to listen to them. It would be wrong to use force to prevent anyone from saying anything. Who decides which words are, "acceptible?" and which accusation are false, slander, or lies? If those with the power to regulate speech decide yours are lies, slander, false, or insulting, is that OK with you?

Anyway, it is impossible to say anything bad about any politician that overestimates the facts.

[Lacewing]

I guess you see the freedom to degrade this forum as more important than truth -- since you use the forum as a personal "my space page" for excessively blasting the distorted propaganda you are intoxicated with, rather than engaging in philosophical discussion.

I guess you find freedom degradin'...'splains a lot

I never said, nor do I believe, any such thing. Again, you distort and misrepresent truth.

You brag about freedom and being a free-thinker, yet you continually demonstrate how propaganda owns you -- directing your mind and driving your actions. You are in service to the agendas behind the propaganda, regardless of how you try to frame it.