Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes

([Note: due to my disagreement with Ellul on the merits of holding "the technological society" to blame for the birth of propaganda--and would rather he spoke more directly of the actual problem--alienation, and it's notable rise before modern or even historical technology--I'm keeping his more superficial views to a minimum. I agree with Noam Chomsky that technology--or tools--don't necessarily and automatically *use* us; the resulting tendency of using technology may be to tool us towards alienation, but this may not always be a constant, especially when we are acquainted with important insights like Ellul's earlier book for which he is more famous (at least in anarchist and leftist circles): The Technological Society.])

from the introduction:
"Jacques Ellul's view of propaganda and his approach to the study of propaganda are new. The principal difference between his thought edifice and most other literature on propaganda is that Ellul regards propaganda as a socialogical phenomenon [resulting from our technological society] rather than as something made by certain people for certain purposes. (...)

"Most people are easy prey for propaganda, Ellul says, because of their firm but entirely erroneous conviction that it is composed only of lies and "tall stories" and that, conversely, what is true cannot be propaganda. But modern propaganda has long disdained the rediculous lies of past and outmoded forms of propaganda. It operates instead with many different kinds of truth--half truth, limited truth, truth out of context. (...)

"A second misconception that makes people vulnerable to propaganda is the notionthat it serves only to change opinions. That is one of its aims, but a limited, subordinate one. Much more importanly, it aims to intensify existing trends, to sharpen and focus them, and, above all, to lead men to action (or, when it is directed at immovable opponents, to non-actionthrough terror or discouragement, to prevent them from interfering). Therefore Ellul distinguishes various forms of propaganda and calls his book propagandes--the plural is one of the keys to his concept. The most trenchant distinction made by Ellul is between agitation propaganda and integration propaganda. The former leads men from mere resentment to rebellion; the latter aims at making them adjust themselves to desired patterns. Both exist all over the world. Integration propaganda is needed especially for the technological society to flourish, and its technological means--mass media among them--in turn make such integration propaganda possible.

A related point, central in Ellul's thesis, is that modern propaganda cannot work without "education"; he thus reversed the widespread notion that education is the best prophylactic against propaganda. On the contrary, he says, education or what usually goes by that word in the modern world, is the absolute prerequisite for propaganda. In fact, education is largely identical with what Ellul calls "pre-propaganda"--the conditioniong of minds with vast amounts of incoherent information, already dispensed for ulterior purposeds and posing as "facts" and as "education." Ellul follows through by designating intellectuals as virtually the most vulnerable of all to modern propaganda, for three reasons: 1) they absorb the largest amount of secondhand, unverifiable information;
2) they feel a compelling need to have an opinionon every important question of our time, and thus easily succumb to opinions offered to them by propaganda on all such indigestible pieces of information;
3) they consider themselves capable of "judging for themselves." The literally need propaganda.

In fact, the need for propaganda on the part of the "propagandee" is one of the most powerful elements of Ellul's thesis. Cast out of the disintegrating microgroups of the past, such as [extended] family, church, or village, the individual is plunged into mass society and thrown back upon his own inadequate resources, his isolation, his loneliness, his ineffectuality. Propaganda then hands him in veritable abundance what he needs: a raison d'etre, persornal involvement and participationin important events, an outlet and excuse for some of his more doubtful impulses, righteousness--all factitious, to be sure, all more or less spurious; but he drinks it all in and asks for more. Without this intense collaboration by the propagandee the propagandist would be helpless.

Thus propaganda, by first creating pseudo-needs through "pre-propaganda" and then providing pseudo-satisfactions for them, is pernicious. Can wholesom propaganda be made for a wholesome cause? Can Democracy, Christianity, Humanism be propagated by modern propaganda techniques? Ellul traces the similarities among all propaganda efforts--Communist, Nazi, Democratic. He thinks that no one can use this intrinsically undemocratic weapon--or, rather, abandon himself to it--unscathed or without undergoing deep transformations in the process. He shows the inevitable, unwilled propaganda effects of which the "good" propagndist is unaware, the "fallout" from any major propaganda activity and all its pernicious consequences. Most pernicious of all: the process, once fully launched, tends to become irreversible.

Ellul critically reviews what most American authors have written onthe subject of propagnada and mass media, having studied the literature from Lasswell to Riesman with great thoroughness...Ellul believes that, on the whole, propaganda is much more effective, and effective inmany more ways, than most American analysis shoes....propaganda is a unique phenomenon that results from the totality of forces pressing in upon an individual and his society...

To make his many original points, Ellul never relies on statistics or quantification, which he heartily disdains, but on observation and logic. His treatise is a fully integrated structure of thought in which every piece fits in with all the others--be they a hundred pages apart.
(...)

...At the end of this book, Ellul...states that, in his view, propaganda is today a greater danger to mankind than any of the other more grandly advertised threats hanging over the human race. His super-analysis ends with a warning, not a prophesy.
Konrad Kellen, Ferbruary 1965.

Most of the preface, written by Ellul

[(Ed's note: I can see this truth up to the early 1960s up through the 1980s; but in the 21st century, with the incoming of the *new world order* as Bush I called it, the importance of national self-awareness has taken a back-seet to differences in social levels--read Chomsky's analysis on the "new world order" and you may also come to this conclusion. For this reason, I'm skipping over this part of Ellul's analysis.)]

Whatever the diversity of countries and methods, they have one characteristic in common: concern with effectiveness. (1) Propaganda is made, first of all, because of a will to action, for the purpose of effectively arming policy and giving irresistible power to its decisions. (2) Whoever handles this instrument can be concerned solely with effectiveness. This is the supreme law, which must never be forgotten when the phenomenon of propaganda is analyzed. Inneffective propaganda is no propaganda. This instrument belongs to the technological universe [at a time, 1965, when technology, notably, was quite out of the hands of non-elites; thus the need for a deeper analysis in the year 2000+--ed], shares its characteristics, and is indissolubly linked to it.

note 2: Harold D. Lasswell's definition of the goal of propaganda is accurate: "To maximize the power at home by subordinating groups and individuals, while reducing the material cost of power." Similarly, in war, propagnada is an attempt to win victory with a minimum of physical expense. Before the war, propaganda is a substitute for physical violence; during the war, it is a supplement to it.

Not only is propaganda itself a technique, it is also an indispensable condition for the development of technical progress and the establishment of a technological civilization***. And, as with all techniques, propaganda is subject to the law of efficiency. But whereas it is relatively easy to study a precise technique, wose scope can be defined, a study of propaganda runs into some extraordinary obstacles.

From the outset it is obvious that there is great uncertainty about the phenomenon itself, arising first of all froma priori moral or political concepts. Propaganda is usually regarded as an evil; this in itself makes a study difficult. To study anything porperly, one must put aside ethical judgments. Perhaps an objective study will lead us back to them, but only later, and with full cognizance of the facts.

A second source of confusion is the general conviction, derived from past experience, that propaganda consists mainly of "tall stories," disseminated by means of lies. To adopt this view is to prevent oneself from understanding anything about the actual phenomenon, which is very different from what it was in the past.

Even when these obstacles have been removed, it is still very difficult to determine what constitutes propaganda in our world and what the nature of propaganda is. This is because it is a secret action. The tempation is then twofold: to agree with Jacques Driencourt that "everything is propaganda" [(today's popular conception--ed)] because everything in the political or economic spheres seems to be penetrated and molded by this force; or, as certain modern American social scientists have done, to abandon the term propaganda altogether because it cannot be defined with any degree of precision. Either course is inadmissable intellectual surrender. To adopt either attitude would leade us to abandon the study of a phenomenon that exists and needs to be defined.

We then came up against the extreme difficulty of definition.
We can immediately discard such simplistic definitions as Marbury B. Ogle's: "Propaganda is any effort to change opinions or attitudes...The propagandist is anyone who communicates his ideas with the intent of influencing his listener." Such a definition would include the teacher, the priest, indeed any person conversing with another on any topic. [(No wonder, then, that today's thought control pushes this in the popular mind. How convenient to broadly wipe away illegitimate authority's complicity in one broad stroke!--ed)] Such a broad definition clearly does not help us to understand the specific character of propaganda.

As far as definitions are concerned, there has been a characteristic evolution in the United States. From 1920 to about 1933 the main emphasis was on the psychological: Propaganda is a manipulation of psychological symbols having goals of which the listener is not conscious. (3)

Since the appearance of Lasswell's studies, propaganda by other means and with stated objectives has been considered possible. Attention then became focused on the intention of the propagandist. In more recent books, the aim to indoctrinate--particularly in regard to political, economic, and social matters--has been regarded as the hallmark of propaganda. Within this frame of reference one could determine what constitutes propaganda by looking at the propagandist--such and such a personis a propagandists, therefore his words and deeds are propaganda [(and therefore bad--ed)].

But it appears that American authors eventually accepted the definition given by the Institute of Propaganda Analysis and inspired by Lasswell:
"Propaganda is the expression of opinions or actions carried out deliberately by individuals or groups with a view to influencing the opinions or actions of other individuals or groups for predetermined ends and through psychological manipulations" (4)

We could quote definitions for pages on end. [Author goes on to give short quotes from the Italian author, Antonio Miotto, the well-known American specialist Leonard W. Doob, and "even more remote definitions in German or Russian literature on the subject."]

I will not give a definition of my own heare. I only watned to show the uncertainty among specialists on the question. I consider it more useful to proceed with the analysis of the characteristics of propaganda as an existing socialogical phenomenon. It is perhaps proper to underline this term. We shall examine propaganda in both its past and present [(1965)] forms.
(...)

In my opinion, necessity never establishes legitimacy; the world of necessity is a world of weakness, a world that denies [the best of humanity]. To say that a phenomenon is necessary means, for me, that it denies man: its necessity is proof of its power, not of its excellence.

To study propaganda we must trun not to the psychologist, but to the propagandist; [(Thomas Szasz might protest, as he shows that psychology and psychiatry are, as a rule, full of scientific and religious-like propagnda)] we must examine not a test group, but a whole nation subjected to real and effective propaganda. Of course this excludes all so-called scientific (that is, statistical) types of study, but at least we shall have respected the object of our study--unlike many present -day specialists who establish a rigorous method of observation,but, in order to apply it, lose the object to be studied. Rather, we shall consider what the nature of propaganda is wherever it is applied and wherever it is dominated by a concern for effectiveness.

Finally, we take the term propaganda in its broadest sense, so that it embraces the following areas:

Psychological action: The propagandist seeks to modify opinions by purely psychological means; most often he pursues a semi-educative objective and addresses himelf to his fellow citizens.
Psychological warfare: Here the propagandist is dealing with a foreign [(and domestic, illustrated by war on American Indians and f.b.i.'s once illegal COINTELPRO--ed)] adversary whose morale he seeks to destroy by psychological means so that the opponent begins to doubt the validity of his beliefs and actions. (5)

Re-education and brainwashing: Complex methods of transforming an adversary into an ally which can be used only on prisoners. [(notably, such "allies" are often viewed only as tools which can be and have been thrown away or turned on when such weighed interests are served--ed)]

Public and human relations: These must necessarily be included in propaganda. This statement may shock some readers, but we shall show that these activities are propaganda because they seek to adapt the individual to a society,to a living standard, to an activity. They serve to make him conform, which is the aim of all propaganda. [(Jerome Agel's 1970s book, Rough Change: Therapy Means Liberation Not Adjustment comes to my mind here; as well as the value of the public and private schools in the indoctrination of our most trusting and unprepared--ed)]

Propaganda in its broad sense includes all of these. In the narrow sense it is characterized by an institutional quality. In propaganda we find techniques of psychological influence combined with techniques of organization and the envelopment of people with the intention of sparking action. This, then, will be the broad field of our inquiry.

From the complete universe of propaganda I have delibereately excluded the following subjects found in most propaganda studies:
Historical accounts...particularly...1914 or 1940, and so forth.
Propaganda in public opinion as an entity, considering public opinion, its formation, and so forth, as the major problem, and propaganda as a simple instrument for forming or changing opinion as the minor problem.
Psychological foundations...On what prejudices, drives, motivations, passions, complexes, does the propagandist play? What psychic force does he utilize to obtain his results?
The techniques...How does the propagandist put the psychic force into action, how can he reach people, how can he induce them to act?
The media of propaganda: the mass media of communication.

[(Editor's note: important authors on the topic of propaganda of which I'm aware of include Christopher Simpson on psychological warfare from 1945-1960 and Noam Chomsky on the public relations industry, specifically in his online book Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Socieites(see his archive with www.zmag.org). Also the rare find, Alex Carey is supposed to be worth the effort, but I've yet to find his work even tho Chomsky gave him a major plug. See also the Reporter's Collective on psychological warfare at: www.Africa2000.com/PNDX/ )]

Such are the five chapter headings found everywhere. Somewhat less common are studies on the characteristics of the great examples of propaganda: Hitlerite, Stalinist, American, and so on. These are omitted here precisely because they have been frequently analyzed. The reader will find in the bibliography all that is useful to know on each of these quetions. I have instead tried to examine aspects of propaganda very rarely treated--to adopt a point of view, a perspective, an unorthodox view. I have sought to use a method that is neither abstract nor statistical, but occasionally relies on existing studies.The reader should know that he is not dealing with an Encyclopedia of Propaganda, but with a work that assumes his familiarity with its psychological foundations, techniques, and methods, and that endeavors to bring contemporary man a step closer to an awareness of propaganda--the very phenomenon that conditions and regulates him

On the other hand, I have considered propaganda as a whole. It is usual to pass ethical judgments on its ends, judgments that then dedound on propaganda considered as a means, such as: Because democracy is good and dictatorship bad, prpaganda serving a democracy is good even if as a technique it is identical with propaganda serving a dictatorship. Or, because Socialism is good and Fascism bad, propaganda is not altogether evil in the hands of Socialists, but is totally evil in Fascist hands (6). I repudiate this attitude. Propaganda as a phenomenon is essentially the same inChina or the Soviet Union or the United States or Algeria. Techniques tend to align themsevles with one another. The media of dissemination may be more or less perfected, more or less directly used, just as organizations may be more or less effective, but that does not change the heart of the problem: those who accept the principle of propaganda and decide to utilize it will inevitably employ themost effective organization and methods. (7) Moreover, the premise of this book is that propaganda, no matter who makes it--be he the most upright and best-intentioned of men--has certain identical results in Communism or Hitlerism or Western democracy, inevitable results on the individual or groups, and different from the doctrine promulgated, or the regime supported, by that propaganda. In other words, Hitlerism as a regime had certain effects, and the propaganda used by the Nazis undeniably had certain specific characteristics. But whereas most analysts stop at this specificity, I have tried to eliminate it in order to look only at the mot general characteristics, the effects common to all cases, to all methods of propaganda. Therefore I have adopted the same perspective and the same method in studying propaganda as in studying any other technique.