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Old November 16th, 2012 #1
Alex Linder
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Default #1 Jacques Ellul Thread ("Propaganda")

Came across this last night. Who thinks to doubt the value of mass 'education,' specifically the teaching of reading? Here's the other side of the arugument never made (emphasis added):

Quote:
In addition to a certain living standard, another condition must be met: if man is to be successfully propagandized, he needs at least a minimum of culture. Propaganda acnnot succeed when people have no trace of Western culture. We are not speaking here of intelligence; some primitive tribes are surely intelligent, but have an intelligence foreign to our concepts and customs. A base is needed -- for example, education; a man who cannot read will escape most propaganda, as will a man who is not interested in reading. People used to think that learning to read evidenced human progress; they still celebrate the decline of illiteracy as a great victory; they condemn countries with a large proportion of illiterates; they think that reading is a road to freedom. All this is debatable, for the important thing is not to be able to read, but to understand what one reads, to reflect on and judge what one reads. Outside of that, reading has no meaning (and even destroys certain automatic qualities of memory and observation). but to talk about critical faculties and discernment is to talk about something far above primary education and to consider a very small minority. The vast majority of people, perhaps 90 percent, know how to read, but do not exercise their intelligence beyond this. They attribute authority and eminent value to the printed word, or, conversely, reject it altogether. As these people do not possess enough knowledge to reflect and discern, they believe -- or disbelieve -- in toto what they read. And as such people, moreover will select the easiest, not the hardest, reading matter, they are precisely on the level at which the printed word can seize and convince them without opposition. They are perfectly adapted to propaganda.
(pp. 108-9)
 
Old November 16th, 2012 #2
Martin Simard
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If a person hasn't read enough on a specific topic they lack the ability to know when they are reading something that is false. Also, simply believing the first thing you read can lead your pre-existing instinctive feelings on the issue in the opposite (wrong) direction.
 
Old November 16th, 2012 #3
Whitefist
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Exclamation Pre-Crime and Propaganda...more thoughts from Ellul



pp. 100-102

Quote:
The police have perfected to an unheard of degree technical methods both of research and of action. Everyone is delighted with this development because it would seem to guarantee an increasingly efficient protection against criminals. Let us put aside for the moment the problem of police corruption and concentrate on the technical apparatus, which, as I have noted, is becoming extremely precise. Will this apparatus be applied only to criminals? We know that this is not the case; and we are tempted to react by saying that it is the state which applies this technical apparatus without discrimination. But there is an error of perspective here. The instrument tends to be applied everywhere it can be applied. It functions without discrimination--because it exists without discrimination. The techniques of the police, which are developing at an extremely rapid tempo, have as their necessary end the transformation of the entire nation into a concentration camp. This is no perverse decision on the part of some party or government. To be sure of apprehending criminals, it is necessary that everyone be supervised. It is necessary to know exactly what every every citizen is up to, to know his relations, his amusements, etc. And the state is increasingly in a position to know these things. . . .

The police must move in the direction of anticipating and forestalling crime. Eventually intervention will be useless. This state of affairs can come about in two ways: first, by constant surveillance, to the end that noxious intentions be known in advance and the police be able to act before the premeditated crime takes place; second, by the climate of social conformity which we have mentioned. This goal presupposes the paternal surveillance of every citizen, and, in addition, the closest possible tie-in with all other techniques--administrative, organizational, and psychological. The technique of police control has value only if the police are in close contact with the trade unions and the schools. In particular, it is allied with propaganda. Wherever the phenomenon is observed, this connection exists. Propaganda itself cannot be efficient unless it brings into play the whole state organization, and particularly the police power. Conversely, police power is a genuine technique only when it is supplemented by propaganda, which plays a leading role in the psychological environment necessary to the completeness of the police power. But propaganda must also teach acceptance of what the police power is and what it can do. It must make the police power palatable, justify its actions, and give it its psychosociological structure among the masses of people. . . .

This type of police organization is not an arbitrary prospect. It is maintained by every authoritarian government, where every citizen is regarded as a suspect ignorant of his own capabilities. It is the tendency in the United States, and we are beginning to see the first elements of it in France. The administration of the French police was oriented, in 1951, toward and organization of the system "in depth." This took place, for example, at the level of the Record Office. Certain elements of this are simple and well known: fingerprint files, records of firearms, application of statistical methods which allow the police to obtain in a minimum of time the most varied kinds of information and to know from day to day the current state of criminality in all its forms.
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The mob was heading in, to ransack and loot the apartments of the terrified old men and women. When the troopers arrived, M-16s at the ready, the mob threatened and cursed, but the mob retreated. It had met the one thing that could stop it: force, rooted in justice, backed by courage.-1992 Republican National Convention Speech, Houston, Texas, by Patrick J. Buchanan August 17, 1992
 
Old November 16th, 2012 #4
Rick Ronsavelle
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The ideological backing for this is one idea- the State is above the individual. The individual is State property, to be used for State purposes.

Government schools are based on the notion of individual-as-State-property.

The individual exists for State projects- the State is simply watching its assets.

The view that one belongs to the State was never made explicit in the 'Kwa- some folks may have taken exception.
 
Old November 16th, 2012 #5
Leonard Rouse
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Simard View Post
If a person hasn't read enough on a specific topic they lack the ability to know when they are reading something that is false.
Rhetoric doesn't really change. The patterns of persuasion are the same whether they're applied to A or Z. If you can spot these, you can handicap an argument pretty quickly--even faster if you already know or strongly suspect the ideological position of the writer or speaker.

This very board demonstrates that every day.

What you say would be true for deeply technical discussions, but not for everyday discourse. The vast majority don't suffer for lack of knowledge, but lack of thinking.

Quote:
Also, simply believing the first thing you read can lead your pre-existing instinctive feelings on the issue in the opposite (wrong) direction.
Maybe. I don't think it's the first thing that gets people, but the preponderance, the sense that their friends and neighbors believe it, that it's 'right' to believe it. Emotion trumps fact. That's why jewish control of mass media is the number one obstacle to any revolution.
 
Old November 16th, 2012 #6
Jimmy Marr
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Leonard Rouse View Post
Rhetoric doesn't really change. The patterns of persuasion are the same whether they're applied to A or Z. If you can spot these, you can handicap an argument pretty quickly--even faster if you already know or strongly suspect the ideological position of the writer or speaker.

This very board demonstrates that every day.

What you say would be true for deeply technical discussions, but not for everyday discourse. The vast majority don't suffer for lack of knowledge, but lack of thinking.



Maybe. I don't think it's the first thing that gets people, but the preponderance, the sense that their friends and neighbors believe it, that it's 'right' to believe it. Emotion trumps fact. That's why jewish control of mass media is the number one obstacle to any revolution.
Yeah, but there's another factor that sometimes comes into play on this board.

For various reasons, including haste to get a good google placement on a potentially high traffic issue, the probability of linking to a spurious news item is increased.

Read, think and replicate. is more important to us, at this point, than Move, shoot and communicate.
 
Old November 16th, 2012 #7
Leonard Rouse
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Marr View Post
Yeah, but there's another factor that sometimes comes into play on this board.

For various reasons, including haste to get a good google placement on a potentially high traffic issue, the probability of linking to a spurious news item is increased.

Read, think and replicate. is more important to us, at this point, than Move, shoot and communicate.
I think I see your point. It wasn't my intention to characterize all the activity on this board, just that such described activity occurs on this board every day.

I wasn't considering O'Malley threads, to put a name on them.
 
Old November 16th, 2012 #8
Karl Radl
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Leonard Rouse View Post
Rhetoric doesn't really change. The patterns of persuasion are the same whether they're applied to A or Z.
That's why any good debater knows you fight on two separate levels:

1) The intellectual argument (are you point-on-point dealing with your opponent's objections).

2) The propaganda argument (are you entertaining your audience so that you will maximise the number of people who find your argument appealing and thought provoking).

Also it is a good idea; if debating in great detail in the presence of an audience, to simplify and summarise points rather than go in for stupidly detailed rebuttals (Mattogno style) unless you are doing so in front of a specialist audience as opposed to a popular one.

Or put another way: humanise your argument, give rhetorical examples, traduce your enemies in a way your audience approves (e.g. 'the big-brained nincompoops' aka leftist/liberal intellectuals) and deliberately try to anger your opponent so they get unhinged and start making mistakes.

Quote:
If you can spot these, you can handicap an argument pretty quickly--
Yep, which is why ideologues who argue like skeptics are as a rule difficult to deal with because they hide their ideology behind another ideology and you have to force them out of that situation before you can destroy their reputation.

Quote:
even faster if you already know or strongly suspect the ideological position of the writer or speaker.
True, but then you have to know exactly what another person believes and sometimes; and I find this a lot with people's understanding of National Socialism, is that they attack what they are taught to believe you think, don't believe you don't believe what they think you believe and then get sadistically murdered in the ensuing debate because they don't understand your thought process.

Oh and something I learned debating jews is never go on the defensive ever... always attack as the minute you go on the defensive they will pounce on it. If you drive an entertaining intellectual steamroller over them then they can't do very much about it because they don't understand those rules: they love to scream rhetorical insults and as you squish them the rhetorical insults become meaningless to most of the audience (as it is evident they are hollow).

Quote:
This very board demonstrates that every day.
True, but I still reckon the best way to learn how to debate and propagandise is to cut your teeth on issues that aren't too important too you as it forces you to do research and learn to improvise.

Oh and 'devil's advocating' is actually a good way to develop your understanding of your opponent as by trying to attack your own arguments you'll find their rhetorical and intellectual weaknesses and understand what you need to know to deal with that.

E.g. A leftist uses the Shakespearian paraphrase: 'We all bleed red' (or variants there of) so you respond 'So do dogs: have you taken a fancy to your Rottweiler lately?'

Quote:
What you say would be true for deeply technical discussions, but not for everyday discourse. The vast majority don't suffer for lack of knowledge, but lack of thinking.
Yes the old 'rational population' fallacy: people don't want detail unless they go looking for it and then in varying levels of it and with different slants. That said they only go out looking for detail when you have piqued their interest about your explanation by entertaining them and allowing them to think they are on a proverbial 'voyage of discovery'.

Bread and circuses: simple as. People want entertainment, material comfort and the comfort of 'having special knowledge' of the world that makes them better informed than most about events (i.e. an ego trip for those without real power).

Quote:
Emotion trumps fact.
Facts are malleable and so are emotions: you make each fit the contours of the other. The more seamless the fit the more fanatical people tend to be. That entails producing 'entertaining consumables' e.g. snappy political commentary, intellectual justifications, documentaries, media personalities (idols and hate figures), pioneering new forms of media (rather than playing catch up all the time) and creating an activist community to construct those materials.

Quote:
That's why jewish control of mass media is the number one obstacle to any revolution.
I think that's misstating the problem as it isn't jewish control of the mass media that is the problem per se (the internet and the destruction of the tradition media hierarchy has dealt a powerful body blow to that), but rather that the medium of socially, economically and politically acceptable ideas is judeocentric (i.e. the jews are the centre of it all). However what must be understood is that you can turn judeocentrism to ones advantage as they've already made jews be the key-players in history so accordingly you just have to interpret their own story back at them and propagate that to make your case.

It is kind of the basic law of physics which states that everything has an equal and opposite reaction that in this case means that every propaganda system has the problem of its own ideas, norms and forms being taken to their logical extension and used against it by revolutionary new propaganda systems.

It is not about being right or wrong, but rather about winning. You win this war or you die trying to explain your failure away: that's the basic choice.
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Last edited by Karl Radl; November 16th, 2012 at 03:59 PM.
 
Old November 16th, 2012 #9
AlexanderHaynes
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- Literacy

- Human progress

- Going to school

- Diplomas

- College

- Technological progress*

The most overrated things in the last three centuries, things that will be actually interpreted by historians of the future as artifacts of our doom.

* Most of tech is good, inasmuch as it brought improved chances of survival, life expectancy and free time to mankind... but it also brought photorealistic videogames and porn, the atomic bomb, psychoactive drugs, stupid shows on a TV, and an impossibility to physically hide from governments any longer.
 
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