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?
Many Communists already understand that propaganda is not in and of itself of a negative meaning, and openly understand that propaganda is a core aspect of their revolutionary tactics.
The Marxist understanding of the base and superstructure already makes this clear. Bourgeois/Capitalist society is already abound with propaganda eveywhere and in every aspect of our lives, from television, the media (particularly when relating to geopolitics), literature, religion, and so on.
Propaganda, like so many other things in society, has a class-based nature. While under Capitalist society, propaganda is used to maintain the socioeconomic and political order of the bourgeoisie oppressing the proletariat, under Socialism, propaganda is turned in favor of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and its ideologists internally.
Propaganda is a core aspect of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
I understand that, but say there’s a headline or article that is clearly meant to oppose the enemies of the imperialists subtly and partially untruthfully, while claiming objectivity. Would it be wrong to dismiss it by saying “it’s just propaganda?”
Yes. It would be better to say its particularly Capitalist/Imperialist propaganda. There must be a distinction between progressive, revolutionary propaganda (“agitprop”) and reactionary propaganda.
In the Spanish language, and I’m guessing others too, the word is used to refer to advertising and doesn’t really have such a negative connotation as in English.
According to Adam Curtis - a boomer lib, so not necessarily the most reliable source - Edward Bernays apparently coined the term advertising as a way to sell propaganda techniques “for peace”.
In France (idk for other Frenc-speaking places), “propagande” is, in one case, used in a neutral way to designate the leaflets that are mailed to the voters before each election by the mayor. Despite that, in the common language it does bear a negative connotation, sometimes it is literally pointed as “something totalitarian regimes do!!!” which kinda shows how collectively braindead France is.
I have read Edward Bernays’ Propaganda, short book, basically explaining how most things people want or believe is from elaborate propaganda with figures we don’t even know deciding such things, he also lays out a method of advertising to make people want things they wouldn’t have any reason to want otherwise.
It’s probably best to take Mao’s approach. From Ronald Boer’s Socialism with Chinese characteristics
Some foreigners say that our ideological reform is brainwashing. As I see it, they are correct in what they say. It is washing brains, that’s what it is! This brain of mine was washed to become what it is. After joining the revolution, it was slowly washed, washed for several decades.
What I received before was all bourgeois education, and even some feudal education.
- Mao Zedong
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.
I prefer to use more inherently negative terms like “capitalist/imperialist lies”
I think it could be useful for plainly describing what types of ideas something is propagating (capitalist propaganda, communist propaganda, etc). However, the word is too polemic to be used matter-of-factly and I’m doubtful that we’re going to reclaim it any time soon.
It’s good to be wary of people that dismiss stuff by calling it “propaganda” without elaboration, though. People often get stuck in confirmation bias bubbles where everything that challenges their worldview is seen as “propaganda” but everything that conforms to it is considered the value-neutral, objective truth. It’s by these people where the word sees its most use, in my experience.
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