The Ethics of Propaganda
Advocates for social and environmental justice are often plagued by questions of efficacy? What works? What will win? What are appropriate means of using media to create social change? The answers to these questions, particularly the last, will influence the future --trajectory of mass and local movements.Often the Left willingly acknowledges the coercive nature of the dominant media--its propagandistic impact generated by over one-hundred years of psychology, sociology, and other sciences designed to help people understand, and in a worst case scenario, manipulate human behavior. In doing so, it is left with an ethical question that will shape history for better or worse: should we traffic in coercive media strategies or should we inspire criticality through education, poetry, and non-coercive narrative forms? Should we do both? These are the questions we must answer through our praxis. Our actions will determine whether we win or lose.
A quick example can be found in the sloganeering of the election. "YES WE CAN." These three words offer many enormous hope. People feel that life might be manageable. Those who understand that in many ways after the devestation of Iraq, the environment, the education system, the economy, and ongoing wars against the poor, that the more appropriate slogan might be "Oh no we didn't" or even better "whoops,"the rallying cry of inspiration might be utter crap.
There are those who acknowledge that even if our future is grim in the shadow of post-industrial collapse, global warming, a recession, and the blowback from untold violence the world over, that it is still better to forward a message of hope rather than realism. This, to me, appears politicking, immoral, and ethically unsound.
Coercion is violent. False hope is coercive. It seems to me, hope, these days, is violent.
Many say that the dour Left will never win. Unfortunately, Right or Left, the outcome most people world over face is life with preventable or treatable disease, starvation, bloodshed, and poverty. This is not an accident. This is due to the intentional policies and politics of the U.S. and other Capitalist nations. This is not hopeful. It is apocalyptic, an apocalypse most people live daily.
Will optimism recuse us from Capitalism? Probably not. Is it good propaganda to say things feel hopeless? Certainly not. Are things hopeless? Probably.
Should we admit it?
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The Ethics of Propaganda
You stated your actions will determine whether you win or lose. Actions cannot be separated from results. If you manipulate and coerce, then you create manipulation and coercion. You lose from the very instant you practice the same actions as those who oppress, exploit, and manipulate the others today.
The alternative to hope is hopelessness. How can one create a better world if one cannot imagine and hope for something better? You lose from the very moment you give up hope.
Guy talking about a bunch of different stuff.
This is some interesting insight. Rebuttal: Hope is what you make it to be. If you give up on something, It wont get done until somebody else does it. Interestingly enough, somebody always seems to do it. Propaganda is necessary to excite people who otherwise wouldn't know what a president was. Advertising techniques can be used for good or evil, it's for the provider to decide.