PROPAGANDA
Author(s): Neil Postman
Source: ETC: A Review of General Semantics , Summer 1979, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Summer
1979), pp. 128-133
Published by: Institute of General Semantics
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42575397
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Neil Postman» I PROPAGANDA
Of the all most the words mischievous. we use The to talk essential about talk, problems propaganda its use poses, is perhaps andthe most mischievous. The essential problems its use poses, and
never resolves, are reflected in the following definition, given by no
less a personage than the late Aldous Huxley:
There are two kinds of propaganda - rational propaganda in favor of
action that is consonant with the enlightened self-interest of those who
make it and those to whom it is addressed, and nonrational propaganda
that is not consonant with anybody's enlightened self-interest, but is dictated
by, and appeals to, passion.
This definition is, of course, filled with confusion and even
nonsense, both of which are uncharacteristic of Huxley and only go to
show how propaganda can bring the best of us down.
To begin with, Huxley makes a distinction between "good" and
"bad" propaganda on the basis of the cause being espoused. If what
we are told is good for everybody, then propaganda is "rational." If it
is bad for everybody, it is nonrational. But how are we to know what is
good and what is bad for everybody? In most instances, this is far from
self-evident, and not even an Aldous Huxley can say for sure what is
enlightened and what is not. Moreover, the information we might
need to decide the issue is often not available to us. Suppose, for example,
a television commercial tells us that a certain drug will help to
relieve nagging backaches. That would appear to be in everybody's
self-interest, thus, rational propaganda. But let us also suppose it is
later discovered that in addition to relieving nagging backaches, the
drug also relieves you of a healthy liver. Was the commercial "good"
propaganda at the time you heard it or was it "bad"? Perhaps it was
"good" when you heard it but became "bad" when you learned of the
drug's side-effects. But since it was never in anybody's self-interest to
*Neil Postman is Editor of Et cetera and professor of Media Ecology at New York
University. This article is excerpted from his book, Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk.
128
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Propaganda 129
use the drug,
with?
And now let
substance, the d
cial for the dr
propaganda? T
lems here.
But they are simple ones compared to those raised by a television
commercial which tells us to vote for a political candidate. How would
we know before the candidate is elected if it is in everybody's selfinterest
to vote for him? Indeed, how would we know a year after his
election if it has been in everybody's self-interest? People continually
disagree over such matters, and we would be left with a definition of
propaganda that says: What I think has been good for me is "rational."
What you think has been good for you is "nonrational." But
Huxley does give us a hint, although a misleading one, of how we may
resolve the problem. He says that nonrational propaganda "appeals to
passion." He says nothing about the type of appeal made by rational
propaganda, but we may assume he believes it appeals to the
"intellect." Here Huxley has, of course, moved to another ground, and
is offering a definition based on the type of appeal, not the goodness or
badness of the cause. But as he has it here, this shift only results in
more confusion. What do we say of "propaganda" that appeals to our
passions but in an enlightened cause? And what of propaganda that
appeals to our intellect but for a cause that is not consonant with
everybody's enlightened self-interest?
There are two possible ways out of this dilemma, as far as I can see.
The first is to stop using the word "propaganda" altogether. Huxley
himself seems to suggest this in another part of the book, from which I
earlier quoted. He says:
In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a
free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true,
or it might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened . . .
the development óf a vast mass communications industry, concerned in
the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the
more or less totally irrelevant.
I infer from this passage that Huxley does not quite know how to
classify "totally irrelevant" messages except to say that they are nonrational
because they distract people from seeing the "truth." Of course,
they also distract people from seeing "falsehoods," and perhaps on
that account, Huxley might think, as I do, that the word "propaganda"
causes more misunderstanding than it resolves.
But if the word is to remain with us, then I suggest we pick up on
one of Huxley's ideas and use "propaganda" to refer not to the
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130 Etcetera • SUMMER 1979
goodness or badness of caus
designed to evoke a particular
ample, that propaganda is la
tionally, emphatically, more
manner. It is distinct from
reveals its assumptions, cau
further information and to s
eliminate the need to distin
(except in the sense that
doesn't). We eliminate the ne
precarious issue of which one
And we eliminate the need,
up but which others have, t
suades and language that d
(even, I am told, the langua
assume that talking is alway
Thus, the distinction betwe
does not seem to be very usef
that says "Believe this" and la
opinion, certainly worth m
niques of saying "Believe thi
for example, are two pieces
which I have defined the wor
and I think three short parag
It was published in The Indi
Vietnam War was heating u
Veteran":
It was too bad I had to die in another country. The United States is so
wonderful, but at least I died for a reason, and a good one.
I may not understand this war, or like it, or want to fight it, but nevertheless
I had to do it, and I did.
I died for the people of the United States. I died really for you; you are
my one real happiness. I died also for your mom and dad so that they
could go on working. . . . For your brothers so that they could play sports
in freedom without Communist rule. . . .
It goes on like this for several paragraphs, in the course of which
God comes into the picture, along with Dad's retirement, vacations,
and several other sure-fire winners. There is, in my opinion, not much
to say of interest about this piece of propaganda because it is so obviously
constructed to evoke Indianapolis passions in favor of the war.
This is not to say that there were no arguments for waging the war,
only that no arguments were presented here in any form, and there is
no pretense that there are. The rhetorical devices are, so to speak, all
up front, and I confess to a certain admiration for the boldness of their
sentimentality. Even the admen on Madison Avenue would be
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Propaganda 131
ashamed to tr
must be some
done as late as 1968.
But the next species of propaganda is another matter. In fact,
perhaps in a special way, it illuminates the difference between Indiana
stupid talk and New York stupid talk. This one was widely circulated
among intellectuals in New York City when it was the fashion to
elevate revolutionaries to sainthood.
The propaganda was intended to give us some background information
on George Jackson, who was for a time a charismatic leader in the
movement for black liberation. We are informed that Jackson was a
choirboy, that his father was a post office employee, and that Jackson
subscribed to conventional values when he was young. We are also told
that the circumstances of Jackson's first serious crime were these: One
night a friend whom Jackson had invited for a ride in his car ordered
him to stop at a gas station. The friend went inside and stole seventy
dollars; then he told Jackson to drive away. Although Jackson was convicted
for robbery, we are led to believe that he was entirely innocent.
The following paragraph telling of Jackson's early life was included in
the piece as part of our background information:
When Jackson was 15, still too young to drive legally, he had a slight accident
in his father's car, knocking a few bricks out of the outside wall of
a small grocery store near his home. His father paid the damages, the
store owner refrained from pressing charges, but he was still sent to
reform school for driving without a license. Three years later, shortly
after his release from reform school, he made a down payment on a
motorbike, which turned out to have been stolen. His mother had the
receipt and produced it for the police, but Jackson was sent back to
reform school, this time for theft.
I believe that this paragraph is one of the great propagandistic
passages of all time, and is deserving of being included in the Joseph
Goebbels Casebook of Famous Boondoggles . Let us do a small explication
of it:
When Jackson was 15, still too young to drive legally. . . .
Well, now, what does this imply? That Jackson was a competent
driver, but that the laws governing these matters are unreasonable?
Why not, "still too young to drive"? Who or what is in need of correction
here, Jackson or the Motor Vehicle Bureau?
... he had a slight accident in his father's car, knocking a few bricks
out of the outside wall of a small grocery store near his home . . .
The diminutives are almost oppressive: a slight accident, a few
bricks, a small grocery store. One almost expects to read that someone's
trivial leg was barely fractured. And what is a slight accident,
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132 Etcetera • SUMMER 1979
anyway? Dislodging even a f
for God's sake, an inside wa
why are we told it was "ne
that he had only driven aro
Best of all is the phrase "
George really had nothing t
him while he was innocently
had a slight accident when
father approve of his taking
His father paid the damages
charges, but he was still se
license.
The "still" is a wonderful piece of propaganda here. It leads us to
believe that everything had been settled to everyone's satisfaction, but
that the police and the courts were simply being vindictive. After all, it
was a small crime, and George was a choirboy. Why the big deal?
Three years later, shortly after his release from reform school, he made a
down payment on a motorbike, which turned out to have been stolen.
First of all, I'd like to know how "shortly" after his release. It sounds
as if George was in reform school for almost three years. Is this true?
And why is the information being kept from me?
Second, the word "down payment" is simply marvelous. It conjures
an image of a responsible businessman engaged in a wholly legitimate
transaction. But George obviously didn't buy the motorbike at Macy's.
He must have bought it from someone on the streets who was giving
him a "real bargain." But, the "turned out to be stolen" suggests that
choirboy George never suspected, not even for a moment, that anyone
could traffic in stolen property. Where did George grow up, in Beverly
Hills?
His mother had the receipt and produced it for the police, but Jackson
was sent back to reform school, this time for theft.
The implication here is that the evidence George's mother produced
should have been enough for any reasonable policeman. But apparently
it wasn't. What was the evidence against George? Was he
convicted of theft without a trial? What did the police have to say at
the trial? We are told nothing, left with the impression that George
Was possibly framed and certainly the victim of a system that was out
to get him.
Let me stress, in case you have gotten the wrong impression, that I
do not know much about the late George Jackson, and some of what I
do know evokes my admiration. What I am talking about is a method
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Propaganda 133
of propagandi
The response
given all the i
that a soldier
of George inv
tion, held up t
George though
guess that yo
Indianapolis. .
Each end of t
style of propag
sentimentality
very importan
us, in each inst
view.
I am not imply
for propaganda. There are several semantic environments advertising,
for example - where it is quite reasonable for one person
to ask another to believe what he is saying. In fact, much of our
literature - especially, popular literature - amounts to a direct appeal
to our emotions. To the extent that such appeals are cathartic or
entertaining or, in some sense, a stimulus to self- discovery, they are invaluable.
In other words, propaganda is not, by itself, a problem, if it
comes dressed in its natural clothing. But when it presents itself as
something else, regardless of the cause it represents, it is a form of
stupid talk that can be, and has been, extremely dangerous. It is
dangerous for two reasons. First, propaganda demands a way of
responding which can become habitual. If we allow ourselves, too
easily, to summon the emotions that our own causes require, we may
be unable to hold them back when confronted with someone else's
causes. And second, propaganda has a tendency to work best
groups rather than individuals. It has the effect of turning groups in
crowds, which is what Huxley calls "herd poisoning." As he descri
it, herd poisoning is "an active, extraverted drug. The crowd
intoxicated individual escapes from responsibility, intelligence, a
morality into a kind of frantic, animal mindlessness."
Here, Huxley is talking about what happens when an individual
joined with other individuals in a semantic environment where p
paganda, unchecked, is doing its work. Stupid talk is transformed int
an orgy of crazy talk, the consequences of which can be found
graves stretching from Siberia to Mississippi to Weimar to Pekin
(This last sentence is, of course, propaganda, pure and simple, bu
like it, anyway.)
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