Propaganda in our Digital Era
"Propaganda, the Formation of Man's Attitudes" is the brilliant work of the
French philosopher Jacques Ellul. Written in 1965, Ellul offers us
disturbing and painful insight into the mechanics of propaganda, insights
that are today even more indispensible to understanding our world. In the
'digital era' the Internet has made propaganda easier, faster, more
efficiently confusing than ever before.
Propaganda becomes a necessity of the modern era
In a world of disequilibrium, disconnected from primordial metaphysical
principles, a world that condemns contemplative introspection and thrives on
speed and change, propaganda becomes a necessity according to Jacques Ellul.
With no meaningful understanding of our place in this world and our
connection within the greater cosmos, modern man needs endless propaganda
as Ellul says, "to help us face our condition." If we did not feel this
lack, if we were in harmony with the Cosmic Laws that govern our universe,
we would have no need for propaganda. Neither would we feel compelled to
read the endless often absurd, explanations that conspiracy websites provide
that over time on reflection amount to little or nothing of any real value.
Propaganda and likewise these 'insider' websites that claim to explain
everything, only exist because we need them. Ellul explains that this need
for propaganda is practically universal in modern civilization and increases
as any country "progresses toward civilization." This need for propaganda is
intrinsic to the current digital era. We have left the industrial era and
now live in a Technological Digital Age. I often wonder if all colonized
planets go through these stages.
The Mix of truth & Lies
As a subtle yet effective form of propaganda, conspiracy websites serve to
distract, to defuse anger and frustration that stem from the despair of a
profound sense of helplessness in our Digital Era, which is marked by an
obsession with quantity in the twilight days of the Kali Yuga.
Conspiracy websites pretend to give their readers the 'insider's truth'
however, in fact are a myriad mix of manufactured confused and confusing
information that deludes, giving the reader a false sense of participation
in decisions that are being made without his or her knowledge and consent.
The reader is often left feeling cynical, filled with distrust, and impotent
thus rendered ineffectual and non-intrusive. Distracted in this manner,
the real players are left free to rule. Haven't you ever wondered why these
websites are allowed to thrive in our western culture?
Fear as a business
Fear based insecurities are the biggest component. Ellul: "Propaganda is the
manipulation of the subconscious by technical means...hypermodern police
methods...have as their end the establishment of a 'neurotic complex' based
in feelings of insecurity. Our technical world not only creates these
feelings spontaneously, it develops them with malice aforethought for
technical reasons and by technical means which, in their action on the human
being, reinforce the structures of that technical world."
Technology has rendered us disconnected from the eternal Real, from any
understanding of Dharma and is symptomatic of this cycle of time. We exist
in a perpetual state of disequilibrium. Technology has moved from the
machine to the digital era. Digital simply means numbers, quantity, not
quality. Our lives have been reduced to digits, numbers, quantities and what
cannot be quantified is of no value. Only that which can be perceived by the
five-senses is taken to be real, thus the material world is the only real
world. The laws of matter are based on numbers and "spiritual power is in no
way based on numbers...all true knowledge is based in an intuitive intellect
(buddhi in Sanskrit) and the identification with its object. [Rene
Guenon]"
Rene Guenon: "Absorbed by action to the point of denying everything that
lies beyond it, they do not see that this action itself degenerates, from
the absence of any principle, into an agitation as vain as it is sterile.
This indeed is the most conspicuous feature of the modern period: need for
ceaseless agitation, for unending change, and for ever-increasing speed...It
is dispersion into multiplicity that is no longer unified by consciousness
of any higher principle...an ever more pronounced materialization...all that
proceeds from matter can beget only strife and conflict..."
Integrity
Human life has ceased to be an integral whole, and has become "a
disconnected set of activities having no other bond...Today the human being
is dissociated from the essence of life. Instead of living time, we are
split up and parceled out by it. [J. Ellul]" Our lives are measured by the
machine, by technology, and by a tsunami of 'apps' that leave us even more
isolated and powerless. Helpless, we watch the children mesmerized by
hand-held devices that offer them only momentary relief from an endless
cauldron of confusion. The Kali Yuga is the Age of Confusion and Conflict
indeed.
Consumption is not Wisdom
Jacques Ellul: "The disequilibrium between the traditional affirmation and
the new criterion has produced the climate of anxiety and insecurity
characteristic of our epoch and of our neuroses...The human being does not
feel at home in the collective atmosphere..." Thus we need techniques,
propaganda, entrainment, self-help books, seminars, and conspiracy websites
to "calm our fears, and reshape our heart and brain." We need to be
indoctrinated in insidious ways into mass consciousness, the herd, and as
Ellul says, this "entails a tremendous effort of psychic mutation."
We feel helpless. Without the high-priced indoctrination that takes place in
our major universities to literally pre-educate the elite and make them true
believers in the current technological paradigms, which are based in matter,
consumption and power we can never have any influence. Ellul makes the
harsh point that the problems of global politics and economics are in fact
over our heads. What can we actually know? These complexities involve
"choice and decisions that demand maturity, knowledge, and a range of
information" that we simply do not and cannot have. Can any of us really
have useful opinions on foreign policies. Certainly military decisions have
always been and must remain in the realms of utmost secrecy. If they don't
want the enemy to know, why would they tell the public?
Cyberwar
In wartime, secrecy is not questioned, accepted. Many of us believe our
opinions can prevent war, but as you may have noticed we are already at
war. The very technology that claims to transform our lives into a Utopian
paradise has thrust us into global cyberwars. Once lauded as miraculous
conveniences, online access for our banking, shopping, medical services,
etc. has left us more vulnerable than ever. These days, cyberspace is like
walking down a dark alley and this vulnerability to criminal hackers is not
ultimately fixable.
Our insecurities have multiplied with every advance in technology that
initially promised to make our lives better. We are more alienated from an
integral harmony with our universe and trapped in an ever-increasing sense
of disequilibrium, disharmony. Seeking answers, we turn to conspiracy
websites with their half-truths and so-called 'insider' information no
matter how absurd these reports may be. The more absurd the better, for as
Ellul brutally says, at least this gives us the illusion of participation
and most of us prefer to express "stupidities to not expressing any
opinion." In our desperation to participate, we are ready "to accept a
propaganda that will permit them to participate and which hides their
incapacity beneath explanations, judgments, and news, enabling them to
satisfy their desire without eliminating their incompetence."
"...a corps of men who do nothing but study the ways and means of
changing minds or binding minds to their convictions."
Alex Carey: "The common man...has never been so confused, mystified and
baffled. His most intimate conceptions of himself, of his needs, and indeed
the very nature of human nature, have been subject to skilled manipulation
and construction in the interests of corporate efficiency and
profit...propaganda has become a profession. The modern world is busy
developing a corps of men who do nothing but study the ways and means of
changing minds or binding minds to their convictions."
We helpless individuals, who realize we have no control over decisions that
are profoundly altering our lives on every level economic, environmental,
and political are driven to despair. We require what Ellul calls "an
ideological veil" to blunt this harsh reality and propaganda found in any
'insider' conspiracy website offers "a remedy for a basically intolerable
situation." My intuition tells me these websites are actually being used to
refine techniques and make indoctrination through subtle insidious
propaganda even more effective, to calm the "bewildered herds" as Edward
Bernays would say.
V. Susan Ferguson
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, by Jacques Ellul, 1965;
Vintage Books, NY, 1973.
"The theme of Propaganda is quite simply...that when our new technology
encompasses any culture or society, the result is propaganda...Ellul has
made many splendid contributions in this book." Marshall McLuhan,
Book Week
The Technological Society, by Jacques Ellul, 1954; Vintage Books,
1964.
The Crisis of the Modern World, Rene Guenon, 1946; Sophia Perennis,
Hillsdale NY, 2001.
The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times, by Rene Guenon,
1945; Sophia Perennis, Hillsdale NY, 2001.
***
The Mechanics of the Kali Yuga, our current Age of Confusion
by Alex Carey
|
Questions
or comments about articles on this site: |
Copyright© V. Susan Ferguson |
Technical questions or
comments about the site: |
|
|