If propaganda is just the the propagation of ideas whether factual or not, should we cease to use it as a derogatory term for misinformation/disinformation and instead just call it such?
If propaganda is just the the propagation of ideas whether factual or not, should we cease to use it as a derogatory term for misinformation/disinformation and instead just call it such?
It’s probably best to take Mao’s approach. From Ronald Boer’s Socialism with Chinese characteristics
Mao was speaking to Chinese students studying in Moscow in 1957, but his words are still resonant today. For me at least, the in-depth study of Chinese Marxism, of socialism with Chinese characteristics,has required a washing of my brain, a washing that has taken a dozen years or more. Why? When I first came to China, I thought I was open-minded, thought that I did not assume the frameworks and assumptions with which I had been brought up and educated. How wrong I was.
Like other foreigners, I had developed an opinion about China that was quite erroneous. This is particularly so for those from the small number of countries that make up the ‘West’ (containing about 14% of the global population). I have found that those who have grown up in socialist countries–past and present–find it much easier to understand socialism with Chinese characteristics. This is also the case for the many who come from developing countries, for there too is a living memory of the experience of colonial depredation at the hands of the ‘West’.
So if you are like me, having been brought up and educated in one of the few Western countries, then you may well need to engage in a process of washing your brain so as to be able to understand socialism with Chinese characteristics, or sinified Marxism.
Afaik brain washing means thinking scientifically and comes from the confucian term heart washing (which meant like dispelling malicious thought), as they once thought the heart did what the brain does.