"...people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are. That man who is forced each day to snatch his manhood, his identity out of the fire of human cruelty that rages to destroy it knows, if he survives his effort, and even if he does not survive it, something about himself and human life that no school on earth-and, indeed, no church- can teach. He achieves his own authority, and that is unshakable. This is because, in order to save his life, he is forced to look beneath appearances, to take nothing for granted, to hear the meaning behind the words...If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring."
-James Baldwin
Propaganda is a systematic propagation of a doctrine, ideology, or idea of value to the speaker. I think the key word in that definition is "systematic." Merely stating an ideology or doctrine does not constitute propaganda. The ideology or doctrine must be spread through a system of communication events with the long-term goal of getting the audience to adopt a new way of thinking.
The term is often used pejoratively to describe attempts to move public opinion in a way, or to a position, that the critic doesn't like. One person's propaganda is another's cogent discourse. We should, however, put a finer point on the definition. We may evaluate a messages as propaganda when we detect that the speaker is trying to deceive more than to persuade (understanding that this, too, is a judgment call)..
No comments:
Post a Comment