I’ve been thinking about it, and I think this is the principle that current propaganda is operating on:
If you confuse somebody enough, you can insert almost any information into their mind as a “solution” to the confusion. They will then believe this information to be true, so much so that they will defend it vehemently and spread it to others.
This works best when you’re talking about some area that most people don’t understand and where it would be very difficult for them to actually have a full understanding.
Of course I could use current medical concerns as an example, but that pisses everybody off, so let’s not do that.
Instead, I’ll point out that I’ve seen this happen with computer-related things all the time. Usually, what I suspect is happening is something like this:
1. A government wants to undermine another government for complex political reasons. Or a very aggressive computer company from Country A wants to undermine a computer company from Country B for business reasons.
2. This government/company looks does some research to figure out what outrages the citizens/customers of the target country/company.
3. They find something bad that’s happened, or something that can be spun to seem bad. However, this “bad” thing is actually very complex. They plant news articles (through various means, such as subtle bribery, planting information that journalists will find, making friends with journalists through savory or unsavory means, getting their agents employed in the right places, etc.) that claim that this complex thing is actually “a terrible thing that you should be outraged about,” more or less.
4. The “bad” thing is so complex that it can’t be understood by most people, but they _can_ understand the emotional message of these planted news stories. So they take the emotional news stories as factual explanations of this complex situation. Really, the stories are just manufactured based on, “What outrages these types of people the most?” And then they work backward from that to manufacture the headlines and stories.
5. The target company or country is forced to respond to the outrage of its public. However, since this outrage is based on oversimplified or incomplete information, the “problem” being solved usually doesn’t really exist. And if you’ve ever solved a problem that doesn’t exist, you’ll know what happens: you create a problem.
6. Now, wait a few months for everybody to forget about the original outrage. Now there is a real problem that you can get this country/company punished for. The real problem is probably also complex, so you can now keep running this cycle over and over until you’ve crushed your target completely.
One of the funniest things is that nowadays there is a group of Americans who are outraged by “So and so is trying to fool you,” so even saying that somebody is trying to brainwash people or fool people _can itself be used to fool people_.
The only real solution is understanding—at least the understanding of how to know things, or how to figure out how reliable or true some information is. Unfortunately, too many people use the criteria, “This sounds similar to things I already believe, thus it is probably true.” Unfortunately, propagandists know this about you and will definitely use it to insert information into your mind that serves them more than it serves you.
There is no substitute for actual understanding. This doesn’t mean you have to become an expert in every field. But if you are going to take a position about something important (like something that affects to whole society) and try to convince others about it, it’s worth diving into the subject at least a little so that you have some confidence you understand the actual facts behind it. And be willing to change your mind—the outcome of your research might not agree with your original feelings on the subject.
Max Kanat-Alexander 