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Propaganda: “information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation etc.” dictionary.com

“Fear is the mind killer.” ~ Frank Herbert’s Dune

“This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” ~ Maxwell Scott a character in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

I don’t want to be heavy handed with this post. I’m writing it because I’ve watched some of the political conventions, debates, and rallies this election season in addition to movies that bring to mind just how pernicious lies, told over and over again can be. They become “truth” for some people. And since it’s an election year, I’m being careful to listen to the candidates, journalists and news pundits and do research about the issues that are at stake this election cycle. But propaganda is all around us all of the time from many different sources, so we always need to be vigilant. 

My dad taught my siblings and me to question everything; the news, advertising, politicians, even our teachers and what our textbooks said. I’m so grateful that he did. I learned to take a step back and try to discern whether or not what I was reading or hearing was the truth. With the advent of social media and 24 hour news, I have to pay particular attention to all the information I’m bombarded with every day. Sometimes I get fooled, but asking questions and doing a little bit of research has helped. 

When I taught American Literature, I created a unit on propaganda. Social media was just becoming popular at the time and I wanted my students to be able to discern which things they read in their feeds might be forms of propaganda. I wish I’d had the Disinformation Nation website for them so they could learn more strategies to combat propaganda and lies. I tried to teach them how to question everything and even do research when they weren’t sure if a story was true or false. We examined propaganda during WWII, how the messages were stated, and how damaging they could be.

One thing I liked from the Disinformation Nation website were the suggestions. First, do a gut check. How does the information make you feel? Our gut is a good barometer, but we can’t rely on just that. A second strategy they suggest is to break out of our content bubble by choosing five news outlets to check every so often. Pick 2 general, 2 sources you don’t agree with, 1 with a specific perspective. I’m pretty good about double-checking the truth in advertising, but I have failed to make it habit to check different news sources when it comes to political issues. This year I’m changing that.

I have to admit I should have been more diligent in 2016. I didn’t like Trump, but I should have checked the disinformation about Clinton more closely. In 2020, I wanted Buttigieg, but when he dropped out and endorsed Biden, I had to examine my prejudice that people who’ve been in office for many years are suspect. I wasn’t sure Biden, a very long time politician, was honorable. This time when Biden dropped out, I had to listen to Kamala Harris, and do my research about her. 

There are so many times in our lives that we have to ask questions and research the facts. These range from buying a car, a house, choosing educational institutions, where to live … the list goes on. If we are going to live a happy life, we have to be aware of what’s going on around us and ask questions so we can make the best decisions.

I found this quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson on Facebook, and yes, I went to see if he was sharing information about a real study. Here’s one site about the topic. There are others. Here’s what deGrasse Tyson said, “In the 60s, the KGB did some fascinating psychological experiments. They learned that if you bombarded human subjects with fear messages nonstop, in two months or less, most of the subjects are completely brainwashed to believe the false message. To the point that no amount of clear information they are shown, to be the contrary, can change their mind.” That’s pretty scary. It makes me think of prisoners of war, political prisoners, or people who were in concentration camps. How did some of them survive with their core beliefs in tact? Even if we aren’t being formally brainwashed, we can still begin to accept the lies as fact unless we question and double check them.

Here are some examples from literature and movies that give us clues about how this “brainwashing” can happen.

In the book Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, the character, Wickham, is a pathological liar. His tactic is to be the first to get his licks in. In the case of the story, he meets the protagonist, Elizabeth, and knowing that Mr. Darcy, his nemesis, is staying in the vicinity, tells her a story about how Darcy abused him by denying him the inheritance Darcy’s father promised. It takes Elizabeth quite a while to discover that Wickham has told a huge lie. But since Darcy is a private, introverted man, and because of that is not very popular among the people of her town, she believes Wickham. Fortunately, Wickham gets his comeuppance.

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, James Stuart is an Eastern lawyer who has come West to begin his law practice. He happens to be on the stage coach robbed by Liberty Valance. He wants to use the law to put Valance in jail. But John Wayne knows that’s not going to work in a town where the sheriff is afraid of Valance, as is everyone else. Wayne’s character is the only one who is a faster draw and tougher than Valance. At the middle of the story, Valance goads Stuart into a gun fight, but it’s Wayne who kills him. Stuart is the only one who knows this fact because Wayne swears him to silence on the subject. Wayne can see Stuart’s potential. The lie propels him into an illustrious political career. In the end, he tries to tell the press in the town where the fight took place, what really happened, but as the quote above indicates, the newspaper man will not print the truth because the lie has become legend.

The American President is a story that is probably closest to the situation in which we find ourselves. The story begins over a year before the Presidential election. Michael Douglas plays the President and he’s running for his second term. But he meets Annette Bening, a lobbyist for an environmental organization. He’s a widower, and is immediately taken with her so he asks her to replace his sick cousin at the State Dinner for the new French President. Richard Dreyfuss is the Republican most likely to run against Douglas. The smirk on his face when Douglas and Bening dance at the State Dinner, tells you he’s found the weapon he’s been hoping will help him defeat Douglas. And he uses it, by telling a TV reporter a lie that Bening got to where she is by sleeping her way to the top. That’s a complication in the story, but in the end, Douglas stands up for Bening and challenges Dreyfuss about that lie and other of his positions which I won’t bore you with here. I hope you watch this movie if you haven’t seen it just for Douglas’ speech to the Press Corps at the end of the movie. It embodies what I hope we will embrace as a nation.

There were other movies with similar situations, but you get the idea. Anybody can tell us lies that we might believe. We even tell ourselves stories that might not be true to protect our ego, or even to survive terrible situations. Advertisers tell outright lies, or bend the truth, food labels do it, journalists and news outlets do it too. It can be exhausting to be vigilant, but in today’s climate, it might be necessary.

I’m writing this post because it feels like we’re at a turning point in history and I’m encouraging you to decide what kind of world you want to live in. The choices we make in the next few months and years are important and will determine what kind of societies we create.

Thank you to all my followers, especially the new ones. Take care of yourselves during these contentious times.

Blessings,

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2024 

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