Propaganda, irrationality, and group agency

Abstract

I argue that propaganda does not characteristically interfere with individual rationality, but instead with group agency. Whereas it is often claimed that propaganda involves some sort of incitement to irrationality, I show that this is neither necessary nor sufficient for a case's being one or propaganda. For instance, some propaganda constitutes evidence of the speaker's power, or else of the risk and futility of opposing them, and there is nothing irrational about taking such evidence seriously. I outline an alternative account of propaganda inspired by Hannah Arendt, on which propaganda characteristically creates or destroys group agency. One aspiring to control the public should have an interest in both creating and suppressing group agency, I argue, both because groups have capacities that individuals don't, and because participation in group action can have a transformative effect upon the individual. Finally, I suggest that my characterization of propaganda suggests a vision of resistance to propaganda quite unlike the one that emerges from irrational-belief accounts, on which propaganda cannot be resisted by oneself.

Telling Propaganda from Legitimate Political Persuasion

“…First, as we aim to provide a philosophical treatment of propaganda, we restrict the scope of our focus to philosophical contributions to the subject. 14 Second, as we are concerned with political propaganda, we omit accounts that conceive of 14 Two notable exceptions include the works of Cory Wimberly (2017; and Megan Hyska (2021). As the subject of Wimberly's analysis extends significantly beyond political discourse, we leave his account aside.…”

“…The Trump administration aired a video at a press briefing in the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak. The opening slide read "The media minimized the risk from the start" and went on to play selective quotes of news anchors ostensibly downplaying the virus, with the next slide noting "While President Trump took decisive action" against a background of triumphant 14 Two notable exceptions include the works of Wimberly (2017Wimberly ( , 2019 and Hyska (2021). As the subject of Wimberly's analysis extends significantly beyond political discourse, we leave his account aside.…”

“… 14 Two notable exceptions include the works of Wimberly (2017, 2019) and Hyska (2021). As the subject of Wimberly's analysis extends significantly beyond political discourse, we leave his account aside.…”

Against Irrationalism in the Theory of Propaganda

“…For Arendt, the level at which propaganda's characteristic effect is registered seems to be a movement, polity, or other organized structure (for discussion see e.g. Hyska 2018Hyska , 2021. In my ( 2021), I articulated a view related to Arendt's on which propaganda's characteristic effect is to create or destroy group agency.…”

The Birth of the Post-Truth Era: A Genealogy of Corporate Public Relations, Propaganda, and Trump

“…This is why studies of public relations and propaganda by liberals and social epistemologists who insist on viewing it through the lens of epistemology ring hollow; they miss the governmental level on which the work is being carried out and instead only catch its distant echoes in questions of truth, justification, and belief. 19 Studying public relations through the register of epistemology is a bit like studying a Picasso in the infrared spectrumall you get is secondary radiation from the incredible density of relations occurring on another level.…”