this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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You ever read that red sails 'brainwashing isn't real' article? Similar premise, similar conclusion.
Basically guy was spending a lot of time debunking anti China stuff and getting frustrated. Realized really the propaganda isn't very sophisticated, wasn't hard to debunk in most cases. So saying people are fooled is kind of a cop out, underselling their intelligence maybe flattering your own. They're buying in consciously or otherwise because they see the benefit from siding with the propagandist.
Idk was an interesting read for me at least. If you can't get past the writing style these points are more or less where he ends up:
Oh yeah that's a great article, and very much agree with his take there.
same, hard agree, but it's also so easy to fall back into thinking people are dumb when frustration mounts
indeed
I actually don't agree with this approach. I'm not in favour of calling people stupid for buying into propoganda, but is saying that they choose to buy it/take it at face value respecting their intelligence?
Saying they could break out if they wanted to is, and this is just my opinion, not intending to be insulting, an idealist approach. It's like saying fat people could lose weight if they just wanted to, or procrastinators could work if they simply cared to. I would go so far as to say that it's similar (though obviously not equivalent) to saying neurodivergent people can act like "normal" people if they really tried.
On the other hand I'm definitely not saying barraging people with analyses or factoids will bring them to our side. I take the scumbag centrist opinion here and say it's both: For people unreceptive to our message, what we can hope is that a small part of what we said might stick, so that every time they're faced with a contradiction inherent in capitalism, there's a change that seed of an idea we planted might take root.
Cards on the table, I think chauvinism is stupid. I think someone in a position to recognise their chauvinism and renounce it, but refuse to, have to be stupid. I don't believe that the average person is inherently stupid, nor that idealism is an approach more in-line with human nature than materialism.
That's all conjecture, admittedly, I'm basing this on the fact that huge swathes of a bunch of countries were taught and embraced materialism. This doesn't make them correct in every issue or anything, but the comprehension that thing aren't the way they are because they were meant to be, rather that they're in a flux, a state of constant change, is the most crucial step in this. From this conjecture, which I can't show to be true yet believe anyway, it follows that people of priviledge aren't making a choice at all, they're using the only tool they've got to come to a piss poor conclusion.
I also believe that by computing a sufficient number of schrödinger's equations constantly we could predict literally anything, but that might just mean my brain's a bit mush.
Yeah I mean to be clear I didn't post it as a full endorsement of the conclusions it just seemed like OP was tugging on the same thread mentally. If nothing else made me want to be more specific than 'brainwashing' and a little more skeptical when that word gets thrown around
This is great stuff. I'll disagree a little with the "you figured it out and they could if they wanted to" part, though -- it's the same logic as "you're successful and poor people could be too, if they wanted to."
Most socialists in the U.S. were not raised that way. Of those who initially subscribed to other politics, I would bet very few (maybe none) came around to socialism entirely on their own. Someone out there at least laid down a path left, if they didn't actively engage with you and challenge your ideas. You had help getting here even if you had to do some hard introspective work yourself.
Practically, this means we shouldn't be too quick to write anyone off, and we should at least present socialist ideas everywhere. We have the internet; we can do this without tons of effort. Now when it comes to messaging that takes more effort, sure, it absolutely makes sense to focus that on the people most likely to be receptive, and the author is correct that showing people a near-term material benefit is the best way to do that.