Propaganda doesn’t totally rob people of agency free will (more accurate term), if it did this site wouldn’t exist. People do have the capacity to develop critical thinking, skepticism, and a basic curiosity about the world that allow them to develop some resistance to propaganda.
You can hold people accountable for failing to even attempt to do this.
Agency is not the same as Free Will. Agency merely means the “choice” happens internal to a being. A child has the agency to “choose” between a healthy snack and a cookie, but their behavior will largely be dependent on what they have been (actively OR passively) trained to do.
Fair point.
I think my argument stands tho.
You can get angry at that child all you want for not making the “choice” you want, or not putting in the effort you expect. It’s not gonna do a whole lotta good without substantive action.
You were correct I should I have free will not agency. I’m referring to adults here not children
If I put you, an adult, in a situation for which you lack the training, should I then get angry at you for failing?
No, but this doesn’t really map properly into the real world. People don’t just receive discrete, neutral information which they either do or don’t have the training to verify. The circumstances that lead to the development of ideology (bourgeois or proleratian) vary wildly and some people get radicalized into good comrades by mostly the same conditions that turn others into Klansmen. We do have a right to get a little bit angry at people who fall for propaganda.
Again, I very much recommend reading up on Classical Conditioning.
me, a beast: waking up
my scientist: let’s put that beast in a situation
me: yes honey
IRL what doing you mean by “training” here?
I mean yeah if you asked me to operate a forklift without any instruction it’s not my fault if I spear a pallet of mayo with one of the prongs.
Life isn’t operating a forklift though. Being able to function in the real world comes with a lot of basic training. Depends on your material conditions a bit, but most people get taught basic reasoning, emotional regulation, morality and basic math and literacy by a combination of parents, community and school in their childhood. When they enter adulthood they’re expected to expand on that base knowledge on their own, and we often judge them if they pursue garbage sources and come to garbage conclusions in doing so. Often people with near identical childhoods end up getting pulled in totally opposite directions in adulthood, two boys from the same village may end up with one joining the Bolsheviks and the other joining the Whites, I think we can hold them responsible for their choices.
You are being trained 24/7 by forces often completely out of your purview. Every interaction is molding your behavior behind the scenes; From things as subtle as a half smile by a total stranger to something as blatant as a billboard telling you you’re not a real [insert gender here] unless you use X Product. We call it Classical Conditioning and I very much recommend reading up on it quite a bit before declaring blanket statements about human behavior.
All those judgements are still subjective, and the people you are judging are often judging right back. Let’s be real, if you would like to get all judgmental perhaps you should be asking yourself why we’re wasting time on a shitposting website while the world burns instead of doing actual work towards revolutionary action. This site is very much not an endpoint for leftism, it’s a speedbump. There are like a relative handful of people on this site doing revolutionary work while the rest of us cosplay as leftists, accomplishing just as little as any other lib.
Well if nothing else that’s a good point
critical thinking education is pretty abysmal in the US, as is literacy, so your highschool education on literary analysis is gonna be basic or nonexistent.
Another point I’ve made on this site: I think we over emphasis the effects of public education. Yeah sure US schools teach a rosey view of US history and don’t really teach kids proper critical thinking skills. That’s the case in MOST countries with a public education system. And as crap as it is US schools do at least give you access to resources that you can use to further educate yourself.
I don’t think we can really argue the average American child is more indoctrinated that a Russian peasant who parents were illiterate, where the only provider of education was the Orthodox Church and who were told from birth that the Czar was ordained by God. People in places with far FAR worse educational standards than the US have managed a clearer view of the world.
the quality of propaganda facing me or facing a peasant are quite different as well. People rejecting the divine right of kings seem more like ex-mormons to me than what the :amerikkka: state and corporate media figured out how to brainwash people constantly and consistently.
i think there’s a whole religion based on that
Adults are just big hairy children that can make more children