Do a quick little thought experiment with me. Think about an example of propaganda - a specific thing from history or something current you’ve seen floating around social media networks. Once you have a clear example in your head, think about what makes it propaganda. Putting a finer point on it, what characteristics does it possess that cause you to categorize it as propaganda?
I know for me, a huge part of what would make me label something as propaganda in the past is that it was intentionally deceptive and crafted with a particular goal in mind. Twist the truth, sow seeds of doubt, then present a false reality. To me, that’s the nature of propaganda. At least I thought so… maybe not anymore.
Built into the loose definition I described above are two assumptions:
- Propaganda is inherently false.
- Propaganda is inherently insincere (I used the phrase intentionally deceptive, but the idea is the same).
Stanley argues that these plausible assumptions about propaganda that many of us hold are both wrong and should be rejected. Propaganda can be false, but it doesn’t need to be. Propaganda can also be insincere, but it doesn’t need to be.
Quoting Stanley:
“A true claim, uttered with sincerity, can be propaganda, and even demagoguery.”
Often when we think of a demagogue, we think of someone like the tyrant that Plato describes in The Republic. It’s easy to conjure up images of a powerful figure actively sowing fear about various threats, then presenting themselves as the one who can protect us from those threats, all the while intending to exploit us for their own purposes (Sounds familiar right?!). In that classic imagining of a demagogue, it’s not hard to find both falsehood and insincerity in the propaganda they are using to sow fear and sell themselves as the solution.
Stanley’s book is not necessarily focused on that kind of clear use of propaganda by a bad actor who wants to become a tyrant. He explicitly says we don’t need a “book length treatise” on that subject. He is however, interested in what he calls “demagogic propaganda”, and that becomes the focus of much of what he writes about in How Propaganda Works. This takes the focus off of the bad actor and puts it on the method and material itself. He argues that true claims sincerely delivered can still serve as demagogic propaganda if they successfully bolster the flawed ideology that people hold and shut down other rational paths of thought.
I’ll come back to Stanley’s rebuttal of what he calls the “falsity condition” and the “insincerity condition” later, but for now, I just wanted to share this idea that propaganda (even the insidious forms with ill intent behind them) can be comprised of true statements and delivered by people who sincerely believe what they’re pedaling.