A question for people who might be considered more experienced anarchists: Do you still sometimes find yourselves falling for propaganda sometimes? Is anyone ever immune to it?

Submitted by nihilistique in AskRaddle

This is something I've been thinking about, mainly from the perspective of propaganda that appeals to strong emotions, but there are many appeals propaganda can make that works on different people. I was just wondering if no matter how long and how experienced you are as an anarchist, if you sometimes still end up falling for propaganda sometimes and have to correct yourself?

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ziq wrote

Sure, if it's propaganda that appeals to my values. I make propaganda all the time. This whole site is a propaganda delivery mechanism.

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rot wrote

i think that the moment that you think youre immune means youve lost to it

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porosity wrote

I don't usually find out that I have fallen for some propaganda. At the same time, I mostly suspend my belief or disbelief in any intense thing I relate to until I've had a choice to absorb things from credible sources. At the same time I make as much room emotionally as I can for the worst possibility to be true, and make a series of plans for each different truth.

I'm going to work with the current genocide of Palestinians in mind here.
I don't think additional urgency makes sense when you are far removed from a situation and do your best to live as fully as possible already, so there is time to evaluate things. In most disasters, if you haven't already been working to build networks and other forms of capacity that enable you to act, most types of action are too late. If you weren't sabotaging stuff before it's good to start now, but ideally you always knew the horrors and you've been doing sabotage all the time, so that when an site becomes extra ripe for sabotage, you've got the experience.

That meme where the Incredible Hulk says he is always angry and that's why he never has to get angry is imo a good methodology for being prepared for propaganda that appeals to strong emotions. I live among the horror and desolation of the world as much as I can handle. In my case it helps me remain emotionally prepared for which that horror spikes or reaches me intimately.

For me, having spent some significant time learning about counterinsurgency, it (presumably) really helps not to get sucked into false stories.

Maybe the most successful element of propaganda is the things that are not being said, and how their exclusion might lull us into a false sense that the world is not hell.

There are better ways to explain some of these things, but I thought I would try to articulate it anyway.

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Fool wrote

I need to see the deeds before I'll accept any propaganda.

Just to confirm that they're approved by the right authority.

🐿️

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