The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no longer to transform an opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief."
I’d be curious on opinions from others who’ve read this.
The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no longer to transform an opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief."
I’d be curious on opinions from others who’ve read this.
That's a pretty broad generalization. Does the author put forward any specific examples to make the argument?
Just to play devil's advocate so to speak, it seems like the biggest producer of sophisticated modern propaganda in the world is communist China and that is mostly designed to pacify its population and prevent any sort of unpredictable action.
I expect modern propaganda actually has as many varied objectives as it is possible to have including at times, provoking action. But to claim that "the aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas but to provoke action" seems an enormous overstatement.
0 x
A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no longer to transform an opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief."
I’d be curious on opinions from others who’ve read this.
In my experience Ellul is both correct and incorrect. Correct in that the uses of propaganda are to provoke action in addition to brainwashing a populace into a particular world view. Incorrect in that this is a modern phenomena: this is as old as satan. Rulers and governments have employed propagandists for millennia.
Propaganda has a number of objectives which can coexist simultaneously. Rarely have I seen it used with only one objective.
1 x
Max (Plain Catholic)
Mt 24:35 Proverbs 18:2 A fool does not delight in understanding but only in revealing his own mind.
1 Corinthians 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God
If we would all be honest, we are all guilty of spreading propaganda. When we tell a story or recount an experience we had, human nature has us relaying the parts we want others to know, and leave out parts we want to keep hidden.
3 x
I self-identify as a conspiracy theorist. My pronouns are told/you/so.
The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no longer to transform an opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief."
I’d be curious on opinions from others who’ve read this.
That's a pretty broad generalization. Does the author put forward any specific examples to make the argument?
Just to play devil's advocate so to speak, it seems like the biggest producer of sophisticated modern propaganda in the world is communist China and that is mostly designed to pacify its population and prevent any sort of unpredictable action.
I expect modern propaganda actually has as many varied objectives as it is possible to have including at times, provoking action. But to claim that "the aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas but to provoke action" seems an enormous overstatement.
I’d suggest you read the book then decide if it’s an overstatement.
Ellul addresses the modern propaganda machines in China, Russia, and the US. By Modern Propaganda, he means the use of the psychological and social sciences to shape action on a mythical belief. One quote doesn’t do justice, but the concept that ideas and truth are no longer as important as promoting action by further instilling the mythical beliefs, seems very much to me like what is happening in the US today. Competing propaganda machines to be sure.
Perhaps this description of what Ellul means by modern propaganda would help a little.
First of all, modern propaganda is based on scientific analyses of psychology and sociology. Step by step, the propagandist builds his techniques on the basis of his knowledge of man, his tendencies, his desires, his needs, his psychic mechanisms, his conditioning—and as much on social psychology as on depth psychology. He shapes his procedures on the basis of our knowledge of groups and their laws of formation and dissolution, of mass influences, and of environmental limitations. Without the scientific research of modern psychology and sociology there would be no propaganda, or rather we still would be in the primitive stages of propaganda that existed in the time of Pericles or Augustus.
steve-in-kville wrote: ↑Thu Dec 09, 2021 5:59 am
If we would all be honest, we are all guilty of spreading propaganda. When we tell a story or recount an experience we had, human nature has us relaying the parts we want others to know, and leave out parts we want to keep hidden.
I’d be curious on opinions from others who’ve read this.
That's a pretty broad generalization. Does the author put forward any specific examples to make the argument?
Just to play devil's advocate so to speak, it seems like the biggest producer of sophisticated modern propaganda in the world is communist China and that is mostly designed to pacify its population and prevent any sort of unpredictable action.
I expect modern propaganda actually has as many varied objectives as it is possible to have including at times, provoking action. But to claim that "the aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas but to provoke action" seems an enormous overstatement.
I’d suggest you read the book then decide if it’s an overstatement.
Ellul addresses the modern propaganda machines in China, Russia, and the US. By Modern Propaganda, he means the use of the psychological and social sciences to shape action on a mythical belief. One quote doesn’t do justice, but the concept that ideas and truth are no longer as important as promoting action by further instilling the mythical beliefs, seems very much to me like what is happening in the US today. Competing propaganda machines to be sure.
Perhaps this description of what Ellul means by modern propaganda would help a little.
First of all, modern propaganda is based on scientific analyses of psychology and sociology. Step by step, the propagandist builds his techniques on the basis of his knowledge of man, his tendencies, his desires, his needs, his psychic mechanisms, his conditioning—and as much on social psychology as on depth psychology. He shapes his procedures on the basis of our knowledge of groups and their laws of formation and dissolution, of mass influences, and of environmental limitations. Without the scientific research of modern psychology and sociology there would be no propaganda, or rather we still would be in the primitive stages of propaganda that existed in the time of Pericles or Augustus.
Isn't this of a piece with Ellul's more general analysis of the technocratization of the world? Paul Kingsnorth had this to say about Ellul's ideas a few months ago:
But then, if Ellul is right, this is the direction in which the reign of technique will ultimately take us: towards the dictatorship of the Machine. Claiming in 1964 that technique had already ‘rendered traditional democratic doctrines obsolete’, he suggested that the new way of seeing would overcome any democratic objections, and would always tend towards total control. ‘Efficiency is a fact’, he wrote wryly, ‘and justice a slogan.’ Technique, through sheer dominance, would accrue power to itself until there could be no rational argument (the only kind of argument now accepted) against controlling the minutiae of our lives for the greater good:
Finally, technique causes the state to become totalitarian, to absorb the citizens’ lives completely. We have noted that this occurs as a result of the accumulation of techniques in the hands of the state … Even when the state is liberal and democratic, it cannot do otherwise than become totalitarian. It becomes so directly or, as in the United States, through intermediate persons. But, despite differences, all such systems come ultimately to the same result.
By using the word ‘totalitarian’, Ellul was not suggesting that all nations would become dictatorships, let alone adopt an ideological framework like Nazism or Marxism to guide them. In fact, he said, such ideologies interfere with the direction of technique, which seeks efficiency rather than ideology. ‘Totalitarian’, in this context, simply meant that it would be impossible to escape the Machine and its assumptions. Everywhere you looked, there it would be: staring you in the face, directing your actions, digging into every facet of your life, giving you fewer and fewer escape routes each year.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the times we are currently living in would be regarded by many of our ancestors as apocalyptic. The degree of control and monitoring which we endure in ‘developed’ societies, which has been accelerating for decades and which has reached warp speed in the 2020s, is creating a kind of digital holding camp in which we all find ourselves trapped. The rising paranoia that extends now across the political spectrum and across the Western world – the anger and confusion; the sense of promises broken and established systems gumming up – all of this, I think, can be traced to the rise and consolidation of the Machine, this great matrix which strips from us our understanding of what a human life is, and makes us instead lonely cogs in its drive for self-creation.
3 x
Affiliation: Lancaster Mennonite Conference & Honduran Mennonite Evangelical Church
That's a pretty broad generalization. Does the author put forward any specific examples to make the argument?
Just to play devil's advocate so to speak, it seems like the biggest producer of sophisticated modern propaganda in the world is communist China and that is mostly designed to pacify its population and prevent any sort of unpredictable action.
I expect modern propaganda actually has as many varied objectives as it is possible to have including at times, provoking action. But to claim that "the aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas but to provoke action" seems an enormous overstatement.
I’d suggest you read the book then decide if it’s an overstatement.
Ellul addresses the modern propaganda machines in China, Russia, and the US. By Modern Propaganda, he means the use of the psychological and social sciences to shape action on a mythical belief. One quote doesn’t do justice, but the concept that ideas and truth are no longer as important as promoting action by further instilling the mythical beliefs, seems very much to me like what is happening in the US today. Competing propaganda machines to be sure.
Perhaps this description of what Ellul means by modern propaganda would help a little.
First of all, modern propaganda is based on scientific analyses of psychology and sociology. Step by step, the propagandist builds his techniques on the basis of his knowledge of man, his tendencies, his desires, his needs, his psychic mechanisms, his conditioning—and as much on social psychology as on depth psychology. He shapes his procedures on the basis of our knowledge of groups and their laws of formation and dissolution, of mass influences, and of environmental limitations. Without the scientific research of modern psychology and sociology there would be no propaganda, or rather we still would be in the primitive stages of propaganda that existed in the time of Pericles or Augustus.
Isn't this of a piece with Ellul's more general analysis of the technocratization of the world? Paul Kingsnorth had this to say about Ellul's ideas a few months ago:
But then, if Ellul is right, this is the direction in which the reign of technique will ultimately take us: towards the dictatorship of the Machine. Claiming in 1964 that technique had already ‘rendered traditional democratic doctrines obsolete’, he suggested that the new way of seeing would overcome any democratic objections, and would always tend towards total control. ‘Efficiency is a fact’, he wrote wryly, ‘and justice a slogan.’ Technique, through sheer dominance, would accrue power to itself until there could be no rational argument (the only kind of argument now accepted) against controlling the minutiae of our lives for the greater good:
Finally, technique causes the state to become totalitarian, to absorb the citizens’ lives completely. We have noted that this occurs as a result of the accumulation of techniques in the hands of the state … Even when the state is liberal and democratic, it cannot do otherwise than become totalitarian. It becomes so directly or, as in the United States, through intermediate persons. But, despite differences, all such systems come ultimately to the same result.
By using the word ‘totalitarian’, Ellul was not suggesting that all nations would become dictatorships, let alone adopt an ideological framework like Nazism or Marxism to guide them. In fact, he said, such ideologies interfere with the direction of technique, which seeks efficiency rather than ideology. ‘Totalitarian’, in this context, simply meant that it would be impossible to escape the Machine and its assumptions. Everywhere you looked, there it would be: staring you in the face, directing your actions, digging into every facet of your life, giving you fewer and fewer escape routes each year.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the times we are currently living in would be regarded by many of our ancestors as apocalyptic. The degree of control and monitoring which we endure in ‘developed’ societies, which has been accelerating for decades and which has reached warp speed in the 2020s, is creating a kind of digital holding camp in which we all find ourselves trapped. The rising paranoia that extends now across the political spectrum and across the Western world – the anger and confusion; the sense of promises broken and established systems gumming up – all of this, I think, can be traced to the rise and consolidation of the Machine, this great matrix which strips from us our understanding of what a human life is, and makes us instead lonely cogs in its drive for self-creation.
I've been very fascinated with the writings of Neil Postman, Jacques Ellul and such in their future speculations from the mid 20th century.
Another term used in tandem with “propaganda” is “gaslighting”. It is quite a useful term at that.
0 x
Max (Plain Catholic)
Mt 24:35 Proverbs 18:2 A fool does not delight in understanding but only in revealing his own mind.
1 Corinthians 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God
then decide if it’s an overstatement.