Your Mom’s A Blog

Continuing in the same vein as my previous post. I’m finding it very difficult to determine what and how I should think and feel about any individual or party because of the amount of propaganda being spewed by both sides. Since World War II propaganda has had a very negative connotation and rightly so, though both sides engaged in it. Today it is no less a source of unnecessary paranoia, mistrust and fear than it ever was. (If you want something really interesting, look up the etymology of propaganda and how it has been used in the past, specifically the College of Propaganda.)

What is propaganda? It is information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc. This definition implies that legitimate information that is spread to discredit someone or something also falls under the definition of propaganda, but for my purposes I’ll focus on propaganda of a very particular sort, the unsubstantiated and rhetorical. Unsubstantiated propaganda is the type we all know well and is spread via something like an Internet chain e-mail. Rhetorical propaganda is of the type that uses something besides logic or proof to convince the individual. An example I’ve seen lately was one in which Che Guevara was referred to as “the mass murderer” Che Guevara. This is clearly an attempt to prejudice the listener against Che Guevara, especially if the listener does not know much about this particular Cuban guerilla leader.

Propaganda in politics is particularly prevalent because it has a built in benefit (at least in America) of warning you about threats to your freedom. The problem we face is that we do not ask anyone to substantiate any claim they make about anyone or anything. Let me put forth a few examples from the previous election. Obama was involved with a shady real-estate deal with a notorious Chicago political “fixer.” McCain told secrets to prevent being tortured in clear violation of standing military orders.

I’ve heard both of these and have one comment. Prove it. More importantly, after proving it, do something to prove malicious intent or malice aforethought by either candidate. A big problem we seem to have as Americans is taking a very G.I. Joe, black and white view of everything. Every human on the planet is guilty of bad judgment at some point in time and every person falls short of their own ideal goals. What is troublesome is how blind we are to that when we like the person and how it is all we see when we don’t.

If you are reading this and going “Yeah, but…” for either of the previous scenarios please stop for a moment and consider the following.

1. What primary source document have you seen to prove your opinion one way or another. Most news and talk radio do not count because they do not reveal their sources of information. Think primary, someone who was there, who saw with their own eyes or heard with their own ears and who does not have a clear political agenda or obvious reason to lie.

2. What do you know about your own party? Without going to Wikipedia or Google can you tell me the basic philosophical tenants of your party, i.e., what is the main goal of conservatism, what are the primary branches of liberalism?

3. What information do you have to suggest that one idea is better or worse than any other idea besides how you feel about it? You want to deregulate business? What study can you show comparing business ventures with more regulation to ones with less regulation? You want to provide universal health care? Has anyone else done that, has it worked, why or why not? Simply thinking about the problem is not sufficient. That mind set held the sciences back for hundreds of year. Just because something seems obvious or right to you does not mean that it is obvious or right to someone else, or objectively correct.

I am personally guilty of forming opinions without much in the way of proof one way or another. It is a problem I’m trying to rectify and one I’m finding very difficult. The amount of information out there is enormous. How do you filter legitimate content and then how do you find the information you need? I suspect that if I have this problem most people must have a similar problem. The fact that people are so vehement on both sides when the evidence to me seems at best contradictory and at worst indiscernible leads me to believe we are not forming opinions on facts as much as feelings.