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And so we pat ourselves on the back for not falling for the "capitalist propaganda," not recognizing all the propaganda that we have fallen for. I'd mention some examples but of course that would garner downvotes and disapproval, and thus the cycle continues.
Who cares about downvotes? Give us your best examples - if they are indeed good, you may encourage people to think more about them, which is worth more than any amount of upvotes in the grand sheme of things.
Okay, here's a whole bunch I can think of off the top of my head.
- Opposition to DEI initiatives, feminism, affirmative action, immigration, etc., are rooted in racism/sexism. Even dislike for certain movies is rooted in racism/sexism.
- People are being stolen from and/or their privacy is being violated when companies use public data about them to train AI, target ads, etc. People get really mad about this.
- On a similar note, AI art "has no soul" and AI artists aren't "real artists."
- Hamas and/or Israel are evil. Pick whatever position you want on this conflict, there's a flood of propaganda pushing it and reasoned discussion that goes against it is hard.
- Everything Elon Musk does is somehow evil or idiotic.
- Cryptocurrency is a scam. AI is a scam. <insert some other new technology> is a scam.
- Religion is bad.
- All cops are bastards.
- Unions are good and corporations are bad. Heck, the "capitalism is bad" message in this comic is itself propaganda.
- Cancelling major NASA initiatives like Artemis or Mars Sample Return (or James Webb, Space Shuttle, etc. historically) would be a disaster for space exploration and science, despite their wildly spiralling costs.
Okay, that last one is perhaps getting down into the weeds of one of the more particular communities I find myself in. :)
Of course, there are other communities out there that I'm not commonly in that I expect have the opposite "everyone agrees" views on a lot of these things - DEI is part of some "gay agenda" conspiracy to groom children, Elon Musk is an infallible messiah, cops are the thin blue line protecting us from criminals, unions are destructive to the economy and cause unemployment, and so on and so forth. Propaganda is highly specific to its target audience, as this comic suggests.
The fundamental problem is just that in any significant group or community there are always hot-button issues that "everyone agrees" about, and attempting to question or discuss them with any nuance gets shouted down.
Those ideas you listed are indeed often spread by means of propaganda, but the word propaganda has gained a negative connotation that is itself lacking nuance and is thus undeserved.
Any information disseminated that reflects the views or interests of any particular doctrine or cause - even just your own - is propaganda. If you have publicly expressed any sort of political opinion at all, you have engaged in propaganda.
The word was more useful when widely disseminating information required lots of resources or coordinated effort. Now that anyone can easily do so in a second, the word casts too wide a net to be useful in determining what information is expressed in earnest, and what information is deceptive.
When I see propaganda I first consider where it's coming from. Does it have the backing of mainstream media? Is it publicly/privately funded? Is it facing opposition, and if so from who? Is it grassroots or is it astroturfing?
Edit: Using the comic we're commenting under as an example, it is indeed propaganda. That of course is not a useful categorization, so we'll consider its' source. The creator of this comic Alzward is independent and their funding seems to come both from crowdsourcing and from selling access to their comics on Webtoons. The scale suggests this is just an independent artist supporting themselves, and that their art - and by extension this comic - is not influenced by money to a great extent. From this we can infer that the views expressed in this comic are expressed in earnest by the artist. The artist's views may themselves be influenced, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion. In other words, this is grassroots propaganda.
Propaganda derives from the foreign missions of the catholic church to propagate their faith. This was later generalized to include any messaging with the intention of propagating a belief system, and, after WWI began to also be inflected by a sense that it is deliberately misleading.
The word "propaganda" isn't what needs "saving."
I'm not trying to "save" the word propaganda. In highlighting its over-broad definition in combination with its negative connotation, I am actually advocating against its use.
"saving"
Also, don't use quotes around something the person you're responding to didn't say. You are now the second person I've responded to in this thread to have done so.
I'll "definitely" stop doing that for you.
I think there's an important distinction to make here between how people come to believe something, and whether or not they're true. Propaganda can cause people to believe things that are true for incorrect/wrong reasons.
Are all of these believed by people for bad reasons due to propaganda? Sure. Are all of them false? I don't think so. Most of them have some truth in them, but oversimplify or overgeneralize from those facts, and nuance is important in understanding them.
Yup. At least one of those bullet points is something I actually believe myself, I just recognize that a lot of people who believe it haven't really thought about it.
I'd agree with all of these in a heartbeat! Thanks for sharing. I feel like most of these are matching the general vibe I get from lemmy anyways. However, I'm sure there are more than enough things on here and in my bubble "everyone agrees" about that are just wrong, like you said. The Israel/Hamas thing was the latest example where I disagreed with lots of people. Maybe some other comments will show me some of my own wrong opinions.
We are all victims of some sort of propaganda, you can’t deny that, I love lemmy but a lot of people here give ‘I know everything and I am right’ kind of vibe which I don’t like, especially on the subjects mentioned above
Well done, got my hackles up with at least 3 of those.
How are those conspiracy theories? They are consensus you disagree with that people are sensitive about? Where is the conspiracy? Just that most people disagree with you?
A lot of these "theories" that you disagree with have no conspiracy in them. Mate you're just angry that most people disagree with you.
They didn't say they were conspiracy theories, they said they were propaganda. It's true but gives them an unfairly negative connotation.
Why put in quotes something they didn't say?edited because they fixed it.never mind, they undid their correction for some reason.I never said they were conspiracy theories. This is about groupthink and propaganda, with "propaganda" in this context being on the looser end of its definition since it's not literally government-organized. It's just a list of things that people in the communities I frequent have a common belief in that can't be easily debated due to the strength of that shared belief.
This isn't about whether I personally agree or disagree with these points. I actually do agree with some of them, I just recognize that it's difficult to discuss them with any nuance. I don't like it when people agree with me for mindless reasons either.
Not the OP but let's fish for down votes.
The Azov battalion are Nazis in Ukraine and Russia is actively trying to exterminate them.
The Russian military brought peace to Syria while the US funded Syrian terrorists.
We call Iran terrorists while the US actively terrorized Iran by murdering their generals without provocation.
The US actively pirates Iranian shipments.
The US changes the definition of words to fit their needs. US isn't in a recession because the government changed how we define recessions.
China is actively committing a deathless genocide because like institutionalized racism we are generalizing the concept of cultural genocide to cover all definitions of genocide.
The Chinese economy is bad because they only grew 5%.
The fentanyl issue is blamed on everyone except the US own incompetence. Whether it be Purdue, or Mexico or China but definitely not a US enforcement issue.
And that's just off the top of my head.
*Edit. I see my votes have turned positive now that I've clarified my personal position on the Ukraine conflict. But let me point out that my facts didn't change only that I've pointed out I'm against Russia.
But this is my point. We should stop down voting facts simply because they're uncomfortable. That's how we get presidents like Trump.
except for the first all of these are interesting. As for the first: I am pretty sure there are nazis on both sides, and the Azov-thing is a very very flimsy excuse for the war.
Oh I'm completely against Russia's invasion. I'm just pointing out the propaganda. Russia is absolutely full of Nazis. That doesn't change the fact that western propaganda covers up the Ukraine Nazi problem. Which they literally reported on prior to the war.
*Edit I'll also add I absolutely started with that one because I knew it would be super controversial.
Same, I can admit that "both sides" have some pretty lousy people on them and still think that overall Russia are the "baddies" in this war and should ideally lose it. And that Ukraine may have some lousy people but that overall the trajectory of their society is positive and the good folks seem to be on the rise.
I agree. I just get really angry when people hide uncomfortable facts because they're "our team". Uncritically supporting anyone is what leads to things like the current Gaza genocide. Yes, Jewish people massively suffered historically and in the recent attack, no that does not justify non-discriminatory bombing of civilians.
The Russian military brought peace to Syria while the US funded Syrian terrorists.
If it did, then only by accident. Putin just protects his fellow dictator.
Western media is mostly propaganda. Facts are just something they use in order to lie. What really amazes me is how people recognize that local media is often lying about internal affairs, but blindly belive anything the same people say when its about other countries
i dunno why you are being downvoted.
this is very true, all msm in the us is owned by a couple of rich families.
where do people think they push their ideology from
Western media normally doesn't lie directly but lies by omission. They will only show one side as a victim and never show that side committing any crimes nor tell the full story.
Israel is the prime example that commits Genocide for 20 years but only gets attention and portrayed as the victim when Hamas retaliates. Seemingly "out of nowhere".
Though in the last few months we went from lying by omission to full on CCP style propaganda with no Genocide in Ba Sing Se.
Difference is you get down votes for speech and not a prison sentence or sent to the front lines of a war meat grinder. Just for some perspective that you apparently need.
Where did I say otherwise? I'm only addressing the prevalence of propaganda and our susceptibility to it, not Russia's war measures or oppressive lack of free speech.