Kasparov Tweet on Propaganda (2016)
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-- Hannah Arendt, "Truth and Politics", https://idanlandau.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/arendt-truth-...
(The whole thing is worth reading, though not necessarily in that particular pdf)
Kasparov is due for some self-reflection.
You would do well to familiarize yourself with Hannah Arendt, rather than just repeat generalities.
> Kasparov is due for some self-reflection.
That has nothing to do with this quote.
Edit: Allow me to be more direct. Let's take all the vitriol Kasparov has thrown at the feet of the red team since 2016 at face value. For the same time period, will you (or Kasparov) name 3 brainwashing propaganda campaigns that the blue team has undertaken?
I don't even know what that means. Do you disagree with anything of her I quoted, then actually interact with it. You spent 2 comments not doing that, and then talk about being even more direct?
> Let's take all the vitriol Kasparov has thrown at the feet of the red team since 2016 at face value.
Why are you not taking this to the top-level? What does it have to do with the quote I posted? You think I posted it to say Kasparov is right about something? I posted it as it is.
> For the same time period, will you (or Kasparov) name 3 brainwashing propaganda campaigns that the blue team has undertaken?
Red team? Blue team? What are you even on about?
My understanding of propaganda is not that it necessarily destroys truth or even our ability to use "truth vs. lie" as a mental means to an end, but that it attacks the mental model of reality we used to survive and achieve satisfaction prior to encountering the propaganda in order to substitute a new one. In the wake of the destroyed prior model, propaganda attempts to substitute whatever model of reality the creator wishes to impart onto the subject so that the subject will act in a way desirous to the creator. In this way we "brainwash" and show "propaganda" to young children in order to convince them to take part in our cultural practices, value structures, etc. "Sharing is caring" is propaganda, just like "the U.S. is the greatest country on earth" is propaganda.
Another useful tip about propaganda is "propaganda doesn't care how you feel, only how you act". State propaganda, while obviously false and enraging, often achieves the desired effect of keeping a population from revolting. It doesn't matter how angry you are if you never pick up a gun.
Related article: https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/04/im_not_the_one_you_s...
"Commercials are even worse. That attractive, well dressed woman who looks longingly at a passing two door Acura ZDX is a synthesis that you resist-- you know that they're selling Acuras, and you're not falling for it. You're so clever, seeing through it-- you know owning an Acura doesn't make you an attractive well dressed woman, nor will it attract such a woman. But what you don't realize you're learning is that this is what attractive well dressed women look like. Acura is selling Macy's. And Macy's is having a sale; for the right price you can be 25 forever."
Not all propaganda. I mean, the White Rose called their own leaflets propaganda.
Also, are you saying they can't possibly know? I know whether I am sitting on a chair or not right now. Is this being arrogant and closed-minded, or just me knowing what I know? Even though know the word "chair" is a simplification, and ultimately we "know" nothing that isn't based on axioms we came up with -- but to go down that rabbit hole every time for everything would indeed destroy the capacity to form convictions and to organize in groups.
> Another useful tip about propaganda is "propaganda doesn't care how you feel, only how you act"
That's true for the "oldschool" variants. To put a point on it, I'd say the modern variant very much cares about seeking out and destroying all kernels of people owning themselves rather than being leaves in the wind. The point is to break people down to be able to instill and enforce anything on a whim, not to instill a particular conviction that they then make their own, and which would become a problem once the agenda changes. The capacity to make anything their own, as well as anything that springs from within them, is "the enemy".
> The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.
> There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.
-- both Hannah Arendt
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1978/10/26/hannah-arendt-fr...
> If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie — a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days — but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.
-- Hannah Arendt, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1978/10/26/hannah-arendt-fr...
> My understanding of propaganda is not that it necessarily destroys truth
Not necessarily, but this is the new dimension of some of it. I was actually looking for this quote of hers in English, but couldn't find it:
> "So läuft der Unterschied zwischen traditionellen und modernen Lügen im Grunde auf den Unterschied zwischen Verbergen und Vernichten hinaus."
which translates to
> "Therefore the difference between traditional and modern lies basically boils down to the difference between concealment and destruction."
-- Hannah Arendt
But of course, it doesn't destroy the truth. It's a bit like saying poking out my eyes destroys all paintings in the world -- but on the other hand, it's obvious how I would mean that, right? If nobody has mental opposing thumbs anymore, they cannot grasp anything as truth anymore, and there might as well be no truth.
Regarding your article, here is another really good one:
https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/the-ubiquitous-matrix-o...
> We live in a ubiquitous matrix of lies, a culture of mendacity so pervasive that it is nearly invisible. Because we are lied to all the time, in ways so routine they are beneath conscious notice, even the most direct lies are losing their power to shock us.