War propaganda works by making you too mad to stop and think that maybe it's not true
On a Left Forum panel in 2017, I made this point about the US propaganda over Syria—and a professor in the audience flipped out, and thereby proved me right
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Now that the COVID propaganda has been suddenly displaced by the (war) propaganda over Russia and Ukraine, I feel it’s relevant to share this video of my attempted talk on propaganda some five years ago, and its furious interruption by a New-York-Times-deluded academic in the audience.
Thanks for sharing that video, Professor.
It’s a clear case of cognitive dissonance in real time. I’ve seen it many times. I’ve felt it a few times, as well. It’s always a violent reaction. The reaction you see in the video usually breaks one of two ways. The first, if the belief held is particularly embarrassing enough, the person will take the less painful route and double down on the narrative. The second, is that the scales fall from one’s eyes and they openly accept they were manipulated and self correct. I can think of one powerful moment in my life when such a strong reaction affected me. As someone right of center, I was still very much under the influence of neoconservative Bush era propaganda. I went to see the movie ‘Children of Men’. My wife and I made it about 30 minutes in before leaving the theater. The images of police state and Abu Ghraib enraged me. Why? Because good art can personally convict if you are the type of person who strives to be honest with yourself. I watched the movie again about a year ago and now it presents as something bordering prophecy. It was a powerful film and it shocked me right out of the grip of neocon lies more than any other one thing I can think of. Even at the time I originally saw the movie, I considered myself…much like the audience member of your presentation…to be better informed than the average bear.
We have to learn from such things. Accept that you absolutely can be foooled, repent and get on with it.
Excellent rebuttal to the interruption, and a great demonstration of the point.