Should the right be using propaganda? If so, how should they be thinking about it and what should they do about it? In this episode, I speak with Alex Kruptos, who wrote a great piece on this topic.
00:07:21.240And so then you can just give them the activist narrative that then sort of completes the action that they've already started with.
00:07:29.940And an action can be as simple as something is like doing nothing or like hating you when the person I want you to hate, that type of thing.
00:07:37.820That's great because there's a couple of things in there I want to focus on.
00:07:42.500We're going to spend time just on the definition because that's got a couple of different parts that I think are really critical.
00:07:48.020So the first thing is, again, as you said, most people think of propaganda as mind control, which isn't entirely wrong.
00:07:56.080But as you're pointing out, it's creating the space for the action.
00:08:00.360If you can create the form for the person, then it can later be filled with content.
00:08:05.940And I think that's particularly important when people don't understand the dynamic that is laid out for them in the political realm.
00:08:14.680They don't understand that the parts that they are playing have already been created and that the content,
00:08:21.640the reason that it feels so often, for instance, that the right is reacting to whatever the left is putting out is that the left has that the right's form has already been created.
00:08:32.620The way and actions and the way it's going to look at things has already been molded by propaganda so that by the time the content pours out of the content mill,
00:08:42.900it simply flows into the form that was already created for them by the left.
00:08:48.040Yeah. And it's not in some sense goes deeper than this, because we generally tend to think of it as just, you know, politicians, the news media.
00:08:57.920But Aluo goes and argues that the whole of technological society requires propaganda to run.
00:09:06.540You know, like, why do you get up and go to work five days of the week and work eight hours and try to be productive?
00:09:13.180You know, you never stop to think about it. Right.
00:09:15.420But those types of things are maintained by constant propaganda.
00:09:20.900So everything you do in our society, and this is why Aluo's book, Propaganda, is so frightening,
00:09:27.340is because the depths that he bores down to, you realize very, very quickly as you go through that book,
00:09:32.980that none of your thoughts are your own, that just about every way that you perceive reality has been dictated for you by the propagandist.
00:09:42.420And that the reason why you think the way you do is because you already act in line with the way the propagandist wants to get you to act.
00:09:51.100So in a sense, you become a free market person because you get up and go to work every day, five days a week.
00:09:56.000And you think that getting up and working hard and that, you know, the Protestant work ethic is a great thing because that's what you're already doing.
00:10:01.700So you have this whole complex of ideas that you've already sort of since been like the boar or not the boar, like the matrix.
00:10:08.840You've been born into it. Right. You're a slave and you've been born into it.
00:10:11.720And part of that is just formed for you with constant propaganda from advertising to to everything.
00:10:18.680So, you know, you go out and buy the shirt that they want you to buy.
00:10:22.680Well, you're a consumer. So you justify consumer policies. Right.
00:10:26.900So we need cheap goods and all. So all the way down the line and this these sort of same things then work in the political realm as well, too.
00:10:33.760So the second thing I really wanted to get into that you said there that I think requires some expanding on is that the deratination is is key because those institutions, those social bonds, those other social spheres that preexisted the mass man protected you from propaganda.
00:10:55.660So propaganda is a is a consequence of scaling civilization.
00:11:00.580Can you talk more about why that deratination is so key and why those prior social bonds would have protected you from this propaganda?
00:11:10.820It's it's a funny thing and it's hard to kind of convey. You more or less have to state it and almost accept it.
00:11:17.660But in part of as the way our society went is that, you know, we used to have these tight knit communities that were in some ways very suffocating. Right.
00:11:27.540You were told what your job was going to be, who you're going to marry, who you're going to friends were going to be, where you're going to eat, where you're going to go to church, where you're going to eat lunch after church on Sunday.
00:11:35.900All of these types of things are dictated for you by the community. Right.
00:11:39.080Your moral behaviors are all sort of dictated in the community.
00:11:42.800So part of the 20th century was sort of the liberal shaking off of all of these community bonds.
00:11:50.300So you could have personal choice, individual choice.
00:11:53.540But what people didn't realize that is if your community isn't sort of dictating your life that way and dictating many of your choices, once you shake off the bonds of community, what ends up happening is that there's nothing protecting you from the state becomes the community for you.
00:12:14.040So what happens is then the state provides all the things that the community used to.
00:12:19.980And the funny thing is, is that when you're in a community, you actually have more room to think for yourself than you do when there's no community protecting you from the propagandist.
00:12:33.660In a sense, your thoughts are more your own in a community, even though the community feels more suffocating.
00:12:38.220So you get into the sort of the big faceless city with, you know, you can be anything you want, you can do anything you want, you feel free.
00:12:46.020But now you're really at the mercy of the propagandist because you're alone, you're isolated.
00:12:50.000And the propagandist can seize you and he can give you that sense of belonging.
00:12:57.000Now you belong to a group, you belong to the political party, this cause and all of these things.
00:13:01.900Then he, the propagandist then gives you your identity.
00:13:05.020So you participate in all these things and then by participating in them, the propagandist is able to seize you and manipulate you in a way that your local community never could.
00:13:17.280Even though they felt more suffocating.
00:13:20.040Yeah, I think that's really key for people.
00:13:22.380We, we liked, I think we recognize this to some degree, right?
00:13:25.780You can see people today, they look at, oh, children that are emancipated from their parents.
00:13:30.720They don't, they don't become free because they're, you know, they're, they're still molded by the institutions, the schools, the media, these things.
00:13:41.320They become, you know, more able to be, you know, there's, there's predatory ideologies, trans ideologies, all the, all these other ideologies that are preying on the children.
00:13:50.480And they simply become subject to those instead of the beliefs of their parents.
00:13:53.640But we think that kind of magically goes away once we reach some, some certain age where then we become individuals who are completely able to define our own reality and our own preferences and these things.
00:14:04.560But what you're saying is without those institutions, that's not something that just falls away from children that, you know, in childhood and you become an adult and all of a sudden you can simply make choices for your own.
00:14:14.520So that that level of influence continues if you do not have communities, you know, faith, family, these things that would otherwise push back, those influencers are going to continue to work on you.
00:14:25.980And propaganda becomes more and more effective when you have fewer and fewer community influences to work against it.
00:14:31.960Well, the, the case in point, it's exactly right.
00:14:35.140The case in point, when you look at what happened during COVID, who were, who was the, which group was most likely to resist COVID mandates?
00:14:46.500Well, it was tight knit church communities, right?
00:14:48.800So you think all these tight knit church communities where they tell you how to believe and you can't be free and you know what I mean?
00:14:52.980And they impose their morals on you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
00:14:56.100But these were the groups that in spite of their insularity and their, their seemingly backwardness, they were the ones who were able to think for themselves.
00:15:06.620And because they were part of a community and this community allows them the space, the separation, um, because they have these bonds, the state doesn't fill that need for them.
00:15:18.960Their identity is not given to them by the propaganda.
00:15:22.080They find their identity in the community.
00:15:24.840And so they were able to step back and say, no, I'm not buying it.
00:15:59.320Um, and, and so, but these groups largely remained immune to the whole thing.
00:16:04.140So I think it's, it's very important for people to understand that a key thing about propaganda, especially in kind of its Western context is that it, it, it relies on us thinking that we've broken away from the need for collectivity.
00:16:29.600But the truth is that the, the, the, this large amount of people who think they're going to be completely, uh, autonomous individuals actually end up being more, uh, or easier prey for propaganda.
00:16:42.220They end up simply being compelled to comply with a more overbearing larger collectivity as where the individual communities are able to operate and resist against these things because they have more particular collectivities that allow them to put things, uh, above the, the good of, that the propagandist is compelling them toward.
00:17:05.320And, and, um, because you no longer have an identity there, there, you know, this idea that you as a person are able to shape your own identity is just, you know, um, that you're able to provide your own meaning is, is really, really dangerous.
00:17:21.180You kind of create the burden for, um, for shaping everything around you.
00:17:27.760Like, you know, what does everything mean?
00:17:29.260What is the world, you know, what's my purpose in life?
00:17:31.280What's the meat, what, you know, what's, what should I do?
00:17:57.520Um, and so now, but because of this, you feel emancipated.
00:18:02.640And that's one of the things that propagandist does is he continues to make you feel emancipated, but now he is directing your sense of belonging, what you do, what you think, what your actions are.
00:18:15.040And so it's, it's in a sense, very subtle, um, but you are part of the masses.
00:18:21.700You are not an individual, but yet you're made to feel like an individual and yet your actions are directed because you just can't deal with the anxiety of having to understand and sort out and give meaning to the whole of life.
00:18:34.580And so the propagandist just sort of steps in and provides it for you.
00:18:39.740So we spend a good amount of time on understanding what propaganda is, but I think that's really critical because so many people who engage in the conversation don't take the time to think about that.
00:18:50.260And I think that's going to lay really good groundwork for then how we should think about the possible deployment of propaganda on our side, on the right conservatives, however you want to think about it.
00:19:01.060But before we dive into that, guys, let's go ahead and hear about The Blind.
00:19:04.880For years, Hollywood's been lacking when it comes to stories of redemption.
00:19:08.240Movies and TV shows have trended towards the antihero, a flawed person who makes no effort to change and just becomes worse and worse as the story goes on.
00:19:26.060If you or someone you know feels beyond redemption, you need to watch this movie and you'll see there's always hope.
00:19:31.780The Blind takes you on an incredible journey through the life of Phil Robertson, giving you an intimate look into the man behind the legend and the trials, triumphs and values that shaped him through the years.
00:19:41.440While The Blind wasn't a Blaze Media production, since Phil is such a big part of our Blaze TV family, we wanted to make sure that you had the opportunity to stream it here.
00:19:49.340Because it isn't ours, we can't include it as part of the subscription.
00:19:52.640But if you'd rather purchase it and stream it here rather than Apple or Amazon, we wanted to make sure that you had the opportunity to do that.
00:20:13.440Alright, so I think we've got a better grasp on kind of how propaganda works, what it is.
00:20:19.660So now the question that you kind of posed in your piece was how the right should approach it, because I think the story was, you know, that you had posted something on your Twitter and a lot of people were saying, well, that's not exactly something that Justin Trudeau said.
00:20:36.220And so, you know, it's propaganda, it's manipulation.
00:20:39.400And you were addressing this issue of, well, how should the right feel about that?
00:20:44.000Like, should, are we compelled to never use this technique?
00:20:49.340So I guess the first question is, is propaganda necessary?
00:20:54.320Can't we just tell the truth, bring the facts and logic, and let that defeat the lies, right?
00:21:01.020Isn't that the way that it's been framed by conservatives?
00:21:03.580Isn't that the way to approach the space?
00:21:07.300Yeah, so there's a number of different pieces here, right?
00:21:11.800So the one piece is that, you know, the first of all, well, it wasn't factual, right?
00:21:18.140And so we operate out of a, you know, a 17th century idea of what I'm drawing about, where you're trying to like factual, verifiable truth, right?
00:21:35.880And so everything that is true, that sort of Kantian thing, and where, you know, if you can't verify it, it, you know, it lacks the kind of, you know, epistemological weight that something can be verified, right?
00:21:51.800So we tend to want to grasp hold of this idea of the fact, right?
00:21:58.600So, you know, if it's not factual, it must be bad, right?
00:22:04.180Well, the problem is, is that this 17th century Enlightenment idea replaces an older idea of narrative and story, of storytelling and narrative.
00:22:17.500This is one of the things that, like, say, for example, that Tolkien grabbed a hold of when you, the hobbits are always masters of lore, masters of the stories, right?
00:22:26.960And the real truth is found in the stories.
00:22:30.400Well, stories only become a problem in the modern era when you can record everything and everything can kind of have a kind of an exactitude.
00:22:40.220And so we tend to think that this exactitude is what is most important, whereas older peoples, the ancients, so to speak, understood that the important things was the essence, the meaning of the event itself.
00:22:58.900So you often go into ancient texts and you'll have, you know, speeches by famous people and you know that the speech was written.
00:23:05.680This is not exactly what he said, but in a sense, it carries the essence of what he said, right?
00:23:10.760So then I use this contrast with the Robert Stanfield, right?
00:23:16.600Him catching that football awkwardly on the airstrip, right?
00:23:20.960So you have a slice of true reality that then you take this quote unquote fact and you elevate it to consciousness.
00:23:28.600And that's really what happens, right?
00:23:30.180Is that you take this, this, this slice of reality and you elevate it to consciousness.
00:23:35.020And then that consciousness quote unquote becomes the truth.
00:23:39.080And then you can frame it in a narrative, right?
00:23:41.680So we tend to do this ourselves all the time with our own.
00:23:44.780If you apprehend, if basically, if you could not filter out reality, you would go crazy.
00:23:52.400So we tend to fixate on things, you know, somebody's talking to you and like, I didn't even, sorry, I didn't hear you.
00:23:56.840I was paying attention to something else, right?
00:23:59.100I mean, those sound is there, that, that reality is there.
00:24:01.760The sounds backing out bank bouncing off you.
00:24:03.920The person is talking to you, but you don't hear it because you're focused on something else, right?
00:24:09.000And so what happens with, with media is that the power of the media and so forth is to choose which slices of reality are focused on.
00:24:19.820And then that piece of reality gets focused on and it gets elevated.
00:24:23.700So let's take, for example, a common piece is white policemen shoots a black man, right?
00:24:30.680So what happens in, if you only fixate on those events, no other events, not black on black crime, not black officers shooting white officers, not black officers shooting black officers, not white officers shooting white officers.
00:24:45.180Not white, white shooting whites in crime, but that the only piece of violence that you get is white cop, black criminal, right?
00:24:55.540Or black, maybe not even criminal, just, and, and, and then you elevate that.
00:25:00.700And then you frame that with a narrative that, well, the cops are only doing with that because they're racist.
00:25:07.000And you say, well, he's not racist. No, no, no. He just, he's racist, but he doesn't know that he's racist.
00:25:12.380He has a systemic implied bias in his actions. He obviously killed him because of his systemic deep-seated racism that he's not even aware of.
00:25:23.280Now you've got a narrative, right? So this gets elevated to consciousness.
00:25:27.680Now, what happens is, is that we come along and think, well, that's a lie. It's not really a lie. It is truth.
00:25:32.380You know, just like that Robert Stanfield bobbling the football, but it's, it's, you know, and maybe some policemen have implicit biases.
00:25:42.100Maybe they don't, but you citing crime stats and all these other things, they don't mean anything because they're not facts because nobody notices and they're not elevated to consciousness.
00:25:50.880And this is, I think, the thing that people struggle with is the combination of these two ideas of the, the, the sort of recording version of history, that it has to be the exact words that somebody said and not necessarily getting at sort of the essence of who this person is and what he means.
00:26:11.340And then the other thing that we misunderstand is this idea that not all of reality can be considered a fact.
00:26:19.700And this is one of the things that Ellul talks about is that only those slices of reality that are elevated to public consciousness and then given framing in the public conscious, um, become facts.
00:26:31.980Everything else is just, it's nothing.
00:26:34.680Yeah, this is really, this is really critical because we are, like you said, we are swimming in facts.
00:26:39.540Like, and we are, have all of this stuff technically now available, especially through the internet.
00:26:46.000In theory, we can drop any kind of fact we want at any moment that we, there, there's just this massive wave of information that we could interact with.
00:26:56.600However, there's simply no way that we can do that.
00:27:00.060And, and the average person, like you said, they would go insane if they tried to absorb and process and understand those things.
00:27:06.240And so it's the, it's the focusing of the different organizations that bring these things into reality for most people.
00:27:14.060We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures that are going to evaluate every bit of information that we come into contact with.