Letters from a Young Radical

I recently had an interesting conversation with a friend about the origins, definition and purpose of propaganda. The term hasn't always been thought of as negative:

"The Latin adjective propaganda, which is a form of the gerundive of the verb propago (from pro- "forth" + *pag-, root of pangere "to fasten"), means "that which is to be spread" and does not carry a connotation of information, misleading or otherwise."

It's been argued to me that the Bolsheviks pioneered modern propaganda during the Russian Revolution of 1917, but there are two things wrong with that assumption:

1. Propaganda as a tool had been around much longer, back as far as 515 BC and used skillfully by the Romans
2. Marxist/Leninist propaganda and agitprop were considered essential to the cause, because:

"The term propaganda in the Russian language didn't bear any negative connotation at that time. It simply meant the 'dissemination of ideas'.
Soviet propaganda meant dissemination of revolutionary ideas, teachings of Marxism, and theoretical and practical knowledge of Marxist economics, while agitation meant forming favorable public opinion and stirring up political unrest."

Two French authors, Gabrial Tarde and Gustav Le Bon, seem to be two of the earliest influences on modern propaganda, inspiring people such as Adolph Hitler, Sigmund Freud, Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays.

Now I haven't read enough to argue whether American propaganda or Soviet propaganda (be it from the pro worker's power Bolsheviks or the totalitarian Stalin regime that followerd) were more responsible for the modern sense of propaganda, which is:

"Propaganda is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of large numbers of people. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense presents information in order to influence its audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented."

I find it interesting that the Marxists of the Russian Revolution of 1917 considered propaganda to mean simply telling people about your ideas, whereas American Eddie Bernays took it and ran, creating with Lippmann the WWI propaganda posters of the Creel Commission (also 1917, "the mission of which was to sway popular opinion in favor of entering the war... and also encouraged censorship of the American press.") and going on to pioneer the Public Relations industry, heavily influencing advertising with theories still used today.

"The war propaganda campaign of Lippmann and Bernays produced within six months such an intense anti-German hysteria as to permanently impress American business (and Adolf Hitler, among others) with the potential of large-scale propaganda to control public opinion."

In cased you missed it, Eddie taught Hitler a great deal about controlling public opinion. Bernays is pretty much a goldmine of horrifying quotes:

"If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits."

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."

At least one could say he truly understood society in a way most of us would consider conspiracy, but he also helped those in power stick to these ideas, and I think we'd be naive to think the system isn't still working based on the belief that for things to function smoothly in a "democratic" society, people need to be controlled.

If you find this bit interesting, the BBC has an awesome documentary entitled, The Century of the Self, which talks all about how Freud and Bernays influenced the PR industry, and how these techniques led to modern advertising which aims at people's weaknesses and eventually their desire for individuality (influencing such other characteristics such as not giving a crap what's going on in the rest of the world and assuming that all homeless people are at fault for their situation).

During this conversation about propaganda I posed the idea that all advertising is propaganda, according to the basic definition, "Propaganda is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of large numbers of people."

I also suggested that some propaganda can therefore be good, so long as it doesn't lie by omission or mislead. I voted that sometimes disseminating emotional information is important (imagine how many more people would ignore those "feed the starving children" ads if they weren't horribly depressing?). Imagine save the rainforest campaigns that didn't show the devestation. Imagine posters asking for donations to Darfur that didn't emphasize how "HORRIBLE" what's going on there really is? I think in some cases it's important to appeal to people's emotions. My debate partner argued that we should never use or fall prey to emotion, that being rational is the only way to solve any problem. I responded that I think the trick is to use logic and emotion together, and never one without the other.

So what I'm trying to get to with all this is Obama. Yeah. I'm starting to get a LOT creeped out by this guy. To be perfectly honest, if I decide to vote, I will definitely vote for Obama. I like what he has to say a LOT - of course, that's why I'm suspicious of him. He truly does speak like a Socialist, and I know for damn sure he's not. It kind of annoys me that my comrades have been saying these things for years (er, centuries actually) - "change needs to come from the bottom up", "social movements are important for democracy and progress", "we need change", etc - and they get marginalized for it, while this guy has been turned into a SAVIOR.

Yeah I think "savior" is the right word. I've mentioned this before: what really bothers me about Obama fans is that they love him so much because he represents what they want, but they think he's going to do all the work. That he not only wants to but has the power to change EVERYTHING in their favor. I simply don't believe that. Even if he does believe everything that he says (which I doubt, as he had to change his campaign rhetoric to answer the demands of the people), even if it weren't all just electoral campaign PR, I've come to believe that once in the system (which I imagine largely disagrees with what he has to say), even the president has only limited power, if he (can I say "or she" yet?) wants to retain ... their... position. The ruling class is damn powerful, and coming in and saying "well I know your like your yachts but it's time for the people now", I dunno, I somehow just don't see that working!

But I'm a cynic, and I digress.

I was trying to get on to the graphic design done for Obama's campaign. I mean. Seriously. Scary shit. SAVIOR is the word I used. Don't get me wrong, it is SEEEEEXY. I love it actually! It's really really well done, perfect for the times yet not too web 2.0 obnoxious. It's brilliant. The problem is, it's creepy. What's all this HOPE! CHANGE! PROGRESS! Stuff? It reminds me of classic propaganda posters in a BIG way. I'm talking Mao, Stalin, Hitler, etc. Even Lenin whose ideas I largely agree with had the whole cult of personality thing which I'm just not into.

And that's really it - Obama is saying a LOT of great stuff, but he's also a big cult of personality victim, if I can call him that. He's probably the most charming presidential candidate in history, he's even a little cute, however he has yet to have any grand backup for his claims. You'd hardly notice though huh?

So yeah. What's with the creepy savior art for Obama? It seems blatantly transparent - in a bad way. I mean if he's all about transparency in government, and being honest to the people, why's he gotta go and act like the Second Coming in his imagery? That seems to me completely contradictory and really makes me trust him a great deal less. If I stood up and went outside right now, and had some really slick flair and yelled "I AM HOPE! I AM CHANGE! FOLLOW ME IF YOU WANT CHANGE!", people would put me in the damned looney bin. So why's it working for him? Does anyone else feel weirded out?

What I don't get most of all, is why Shepard Fairey would do posters for him:

This is the guy that created the OBEY (Andre the Giant) design, which - I guess I could be misinterpreting - seems like a reference to abusive kinds of propaganda used as social control... although I haven't really done my research there either.

In any case, the obeygiant.com message about the poster series talks about how much they really like Obama. That's great. It just seems to be a very contradictory message to speak on social control through propaganda and then uh... make some.

So yeah. If you're about transparency, honesty, moving forward with power to the people - why are you trying to come off as THE ONE? My guess is that either Obama or his PR manager are confused. It's absolutely contradictory to say that change has to come from the bottom up, from the people, and then to market yourself (in a blatant, cultish, idol-like way) as THE WAY, as the one person who can bring about change. It just doesn't settle with me.