220
Propaganda works frightening well.
(hexbear.net)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
220 points (100.0% liked)
chapotraphouse
13968 readers
676 users here now
Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.
No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Yeah but have you ever considerd that "pEoPlE cHoOsE tO bElIeVe In PrOpAgAnDa!!!!! I AM BIG BRAINED LEFTIST YOU MUST AGREE WITH ME OR ELSE YOU ARE REACTIONARY UWUWUWUWU!!!"
That was a very bad thread.
That post took the thesis of Masses, Elites, and Rebels and warped it to the point it became dumb. It'd be like reading Oppose Book Worship and coming to the conclusion that you should never read theory.
That work got swung around in that thread over and over again like a bludgeon, practically unopened with pre-loaded takes already pre-justified just by invoking a surface-level summary.
Which thread?
This one. https://hexbear.net/post/814927?scrollToComments=false
Damn, that wound up a lot longer than when I saw it
Seemed like a massive effortpost to say "nuh uh, propaganda has no effect on me because I choose for it not to. I believe I am 100% immune to the propaganda I consume. Everyone else should choose the same thing, should know what propaganda is and how to reject it, and it's their fault if they don't."
So, I have a memory of a similar thread where someone was like "why didn't propaganda reach us?" Which feels like the same thing but more naive.
I think the propagandist understands they are manipulating masses, not individuals, and it probably helps us to think of ourselves as lucky (in a manner of speaking). I freely admit that if I got my degree and a high paying tech job immediately out of uni, my politics would probably be garbage, even though I have nominally the same access to propaganda.
I've forgotten what this thread was about. Protest in front of the US Consulate now
In my experience, the most susceptible people to psychological manipulation are the ones who believe they are immune to it. Carnival hucksters have done that for generations: tell someone they are smart, too smart to be fooled, then fool them. Con artistry comes from "confidence" after all.
Same deal with cults. The average cult member is smarter than the general population, at least when it comes to education and IQ measurements. But they are more likely to be convinced that they have come across special secret truths.
I know a guy who fits the latter category to a T. Well, used to. He was into holocaust denial in 2015 and started about half of his sentences with "Well, actually". No idea what happened to him. He always felt like he got some social currency from being that guy that knows things, despite dropping out of uni multiple times.
Not like us, we're mega smrt
I have had people from hexbear link me Hamas press statements lol. The propaganda is very active from every angle in this situation (although obviously western mass media has the greatest effect) and so many people are gobbling up straight garbage lol.
Some people are just better than others and they got theirs when they successfully reject propaganda (totally rejected 100% btw, their entertainment has no effect on them, for real, never ever) and it's every individual's burden from birth to identify and reject propaganda in the same way or else nothing could have been done otherwise.
If they don't, well, they should have thought about that before becoming susceptible to propaganda!
I think a lot of that take in that aforementioned post was rooted in treat defense to start with and any claims made after that were just to justify the "nuh uh, my treats have no effect on me" position that was already there, including that air of superiority over people that do absorb the propaganda. The superior volition champion of propaganda rejection themself probably absorbed some anyway to take such a hardline defensive position to begin with over what should be just entertainment even by their own take.