This is the essay where I refer to the snowball fight on a glacier. I don’t know where I got that, but I’ve always liked it! And, almost in the same paragraph, I throw in a grocery store metaphor that I also love – what fun!

Here’s essay #1, reprinted from NN Number 560, September 8, 2014:

A Propaganda system encourages not only certain ideas, but also certain ways of thinking. This is tricky to talk about because most of the processes that we use in our thinking are picked up unconsciously and, as a result, most of us never think about them, never bring them to consciousness. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that we don’t think about thinking? So, let’s think about it for a bit.

Every culture shares certain ways of thinking, what the Polish philosopher Ludwik Fleck called “thought styles.” Fleck believed that the world that we take in through our senses only has meaning if there is some pre-existing knowledge already in our minds that we can use to interpret the incoming information. His idea was that the nature of that pre-existing knowledge arises in community, in a social process that is collectively created. In this way the members of a group, or a society, come to share a way of seeing and understanding the world, in the process forming what Fleck calls “thought collectives.” And people within a thought collective are generally not aware that their thoughts are constrained, even shaped, by their membership in the group. It’s unlikely that most people are even aware that there is such a group, let alone that they are members of it! As Fleck put it in a 1935 work:

“The individual within the collective is never, or hardly ever, conscious of the prevailing thought style, which almost always exerts an absolutely compulsive force upon his thinking and with which it is not possible to be at variance.”

The creation and maintenance of a certain “thought style” is the fundamental function of the social phenomenon that I call Propaganda. The term, as I use it, is quite a bit broader and more powerful than the phenomenon that is most people’s understanding of “propaganda.” What most people call “propaganda” I call Overt Propaganda, and consists of conscious attempts to promote certain ideas, which are easy to see and understand. The more profound and difficult-to-perceive workings of the Propaganda system are what I call Deep Propaganda. Here is where a Propaganda system goes beyond the propagation of ideas, working at a deeper level to normalize the ways of thinking, or “thought styles,” that are required to maintain the dominance of certain ideas and ways of perceiving the world.

Over time there develops what I am calling a Thought System, which is composed of a set of ideas—or ideology—that is held in place by certain “thought styles” that, in a circular process, dictate the acceptance of the various ideas that compose the ideology. The Thought System is the sum of: 1. Certain ideas; 2. Certain ways of thinking, and; 3. The interaction between them.

“Friends” and “Enemies” in the Thought System

As an example, consider the Thought System that is invoked when citizens of one country—Country “A”—are asked to consider another country—Country “B”—to be an enemy. That is an example of Overt Propaganda: the target audience is being asked to categorize something in a particular way. But what is the Deep Propaganda here?

The Deep Propaganda includes several ideas. One idea is that there is such a thing as a unified, single entity called a “country”—in this case Country A and Country B. A second idea is that a “country” can have an “enemy.” (Or, for that matter, a “friend.”) And a third is that there are two choices: Friend and Enemy (and possibly a third: Neutral.)

In order for those ideas to make sense, one has to think in a particular way. One must, first of all, simplify what is a complex situation into a set of dualistic choices, which changes not only how one looks at something, but also what one is looking for. If you accept that a “country” has “enemies,” then you have to attribute a sort of psychological process to a “country,” which gets you looking for psychological processes, which then get assigned to the fantastically diverse population of the modern nation-state, which reinforces the idea of “country” as a unified whole.

In other words, we are being asked to forsake an institutional, systems approach to understanding international relations in favor of an individualized, psychological approach. Suddenly we are looking for “motivations” and emotions and personalities, and we’re not examining power relations and interests and social groupings. Instead of geopolitics, we are left with geopsychology. We shouldn’t ignore the psychology of world leaders, but it’s far more important to look at the underlying structures that shape the actions—and the thinking—of those leaders.

As illustration, consider the many news stories in recent months about the “polarization” of the United States, with talk of “Blue States” vs “Red States” and “Liberal” vs “Conservatives.” Then look at the reports in the last month of the United States forming an alliance with Iran in opposition to the so-called Islamic State. The first story provides evidence that this country we call the “United States” is so wildly diverse that it’s almost an abstraction. The second story offers evidence that Iran—long understood to be an implacable “enemy” of the United States—is also a “friend.” Taken together, these stories challenge the standard understanding that “countries” have “enemies.” What we have is sets of leaders who are responding to various factors built into the systems in which they operate.

“Choices May Be Tweaked”

Back in Nygaard Notes #550 I cited a commentary by the scholar Immanuel Wallerstein on Ukraine, called “The Geopolitics of Ukraine’s Schism.” In it, he noted that “Geopolitical choices may be tweaked by the individuals in power, but the pressure of long-term national interests remains strong.” In other words, the situation in Ukraine is not about Putin, or about Obama. And it’s not about ancient blood feuds or religious intolerance. It’s about alliances, regional power blocs, and the shape of the system that governs the behavior both of the nations involved and of the individuals within them.

When we back up, as Wallerstein does, and look at the big picture, we begin to see the larger forces—things like “long-term national interests”—which form the stage upon which all the individuals involved are acting, and must act. To use a crude analogy, it’s like a snowball fight on a glacier. Seen up close, we’re tempted to try to figure out who’s got the most snowballs, who’s on “our side,” how many snowballs there are, who’s winning the snowball fight. And, in the short term, these things do matter, especially to the people in the fight. But when we back up and look at the big picture, we see that the glacier itself is melting, which is the issue that really matters. In fact, it may be that it matters so much that, if enough people come to see it, we’ll stop these crazy snowball fights and begin to put our energies elsewhere.

Human institutions are like glaciers. They have lives of their own, and they provide the rules and boundaries for all of our actions, and for the thoughts that give rise to those actions. It’s not that individuals aren’t important. They are. It’s just that everything we do—and all of what we think—is heavily influenced by the institutions and structures that form the context of our lives. That is, while individuals make decisions, the context for and logic of those decisions are socially created.

This is the well-kept secret about “freedom” in the United States. Most people consider themselves “free” because they get to go to the store and buy whatever they want. But the prevailing Thought System prevents most people from noticing that they can only buy what is for sale, and that the decisions about what is for sale—or even what kind of stores exist—are made by a very small number of people, in a very undemocratic way.

I’ve said that a Thought System is the sum of certain ideas, certain ways of thinking, and the interaction between them. The power of a Thought System is that it makes certain ideas seem reasonable—even wise—when those same ideas, outside of the Thought System, would be difficult to justify. In the dominant U.S. Thought System, for example, war seems to make sense to many people. Globalization makes sense. Corporations are people, medicines are sold for profit, ideas are property… The list of commonly-accepted absurdities is long.

For anyone wishing to challenge, or even to overturn, the prevailing Thought System in a given society, it is absolutely essential to at least make an attempt to expose the workings of the existing system. Once exposed and brought to consciousness, the validity and usefulness of the dominant Thought System can be examined and alternatives can be imagined. And once we can imagine alternatives, we can start building them.

This essay was originally published in NN Number 615, October 27, 2017. And that issue is, in my mind, one of the most important I’ve ever published.

Earlier in this issue of the Notes I discussed the effect that the “pivot to video” [i.e. the media industry’s increasing reliance on graphic presentation over text] is having on the content of our daily news cycle. That is, what is reported and what is not.
To see what was “earlier in this issue,” click here:

The second angle to consider when thinking about the “pivot to video” in the news business is: What is it doing to our brains? That is, when the daily news is delivered to us primarily in the form of video, what do our brains do with all those moving pictures, and how is it different than what our brains do with the text—you know: the words, the sentences, the paragraphs—that we get when we read the news rather than watch the news?

I suggest that this shift to a graphics-based news system—as exemplified by the “pivot to video” that I’ve been discussing—has two major effects on our thinking. One is to encourage us to actually think less, as video isn’t directed at the thinking parts of our brains, but rather aims to stimulate emotional responses, in our bodies as well as our brains. The second cognitive effect of a graphics-heavy media diet is to encourage us to think Individualistically rather than taking a Systalectics approach in our thinking. [Ed Note: For a fuller explanation of the term Systalectics (an awkward word which I’ve since abandoned) look here: SYSTALECTICS

Emotions Rather Than Thinking

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the marketing and public relations industries have spent a great deal of energy in exploring how video affects our hearts and minds. Getting into our hearts and minds is, after all, what they do! One marketing company, MainPath Marketing, presents a charming graphic on their website called “How the Brain Processes Different Kinds of Content.” Here’s what they say about “Video Content” (and I’ll put the emphasis where they put it in the graphic): “Videos enhance EMOTIONAL CONNECTION WITH VIEWERS, through a mix of intonation, pitch, movement, body language, and other behaviors. The brain processes video 60,000 TIMES FASTER than text. Watching a video does not require active participation, so it doesn’t take up as much energy for the brain to process.”

My research indicates that these points—emphasis on emotion, speed of processing, passive reception—are aspects of video that are all fairly well-established by research in the fields of cognitive science, sociology, psychology, and everywhere else I checked.

When the brain is processing things so terribly fast (60,000 times faster than reading!), there’s no time for language or the construction of meaning which requires that language be used. While video is a multimedia phenomenon, whatever written or spoken language there may be in a video is easily overwhelmed by the visuals. In addition, graphic images speak the language of symbols, and at that speed they bypass the cerebral cortex and go straight to the various places, inside of the brain and out, that deal with emotion. The association of symbols with emotions is virtually the definition of the marketing practice known as “Branding.” (I explained this in Nygaard Notes #315, if you want to go look.) This is partly why marketers love video, and part of the reason why we are being fed so much of it.

“Images and Fragments” Over “Continuity and Context”

The media theorist Neil Postman, in his classic 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, talked about the effect television has had on the culture. His words, written 32 years ago, very much still apply, but now we must apply them to that offspring of television, digital video. Said Postman, “The single most important fact about television is that people watch it, which is why it’s called television. And what they watch, and like to watch, are moving pictures—millions of them, of short duration and dynamic variety. It is in the nature of the medium that it must suppress the content of ideas in order to accommodate the requirements of visual interest; that is to say, to accommodate the values of show business.”

Postman points out that a graphics-based media relies on a structure that “is biased toward furnishing images and fragments” rather than the “continuity and context” that could give us “access to an historical perspective.” Postman then quotes author Terence Moran, who notes that, in the absence of continuity and context, “bits of information cannot be integrated into an intelligent and consistent whole.”

Postman concludes by saying, “We do not refuse to remember; neither do we find it exactly useless to remember. Rather, we are being rendered unfit to remember. For if remembering is to be something more than nostalgia, it requires a contextual basis—a theory, a vision, a metaphor—something within which facts can be organized and patterns discerned. The politics of image and instantaneous news provides no such context, is, in fact, hampered by attempts to provide any.”

Note here that a Systalectics Orientation, such as I have been discussing, relies on the ability to discern patterns that can only be seen over time. Individualist Thinking looks only at what is in the frame at the moment.

Postman points out that “Language makes sense only when it is presented as a sequence of propositions.” Language makes an argument to be considered. Videos show us things that appeal to the emotions.

Over time, as the cyber-stream of video constantly washes over us, what happens is that we come to expect to be entertained or, if not entertained, at least captivated by “what’s next” on our phones and other screens. And what is lost is what academics call “the narrative,” which is the bigger story we tell ourselves about how the world works.

A scholarly paper from 2004 entitled Every Picture Tells a Story – Losing the Plot in the Era of the Image, sociologist Yiannis Gabriel sums up one aspect of this phenomenon, saying, “As our daily universe has become saturated with images, jumping at us from our television sets, our magazines and newspapers, our computer screens and our digital cameras, our advertising billboards and our shop windows, we have mostly given up trying to fit them into stories and have learnt to accept them as spectacle pure and simple, pleasing or annoying to the eye, evoking, prompting, comforting, upsetting, entertaining or irritating. They are mostly part of a spectacular rather than a narrative universe.”

Video and Individualism

A videocratic news system has a distinct bias towards an Individualistic Thought System. This is distinct from a Systalectic Thought System. This bias is a result of commercial pressures, specifically the demands of advertisers seeking to address the “monetization crisis” to which I referred earlier.

I am not describing here a conspiracy to indoctrinate. What I am talking about is just the predictable outcome of the interaction of the various business decisions that have been made, and are being made, as the digital information universe evolves in the context of late-stage capitalism. Put simply, the collection of resources that we know as “advertisers” don’t care how we think, they just want us to look at the ads. But the end effect is to change the way we think.

But how, specifically, does our over-reliance on video work to suppress Systalectic Thinking? There are a number of ways:

1. Systalectics asks us to understand something by backing up and looking at the big picture. When we watch videos, the “big picture” is out of the frame. So we learn to think small instead of thinking big.

2. Systalectics asks us to focus on patterns, not individual incidents. A video tells a story that must stand on its own, and typically focuses on a particular incident, which is the subject of the story. So we learn to ignore context and narrative and think only about what we are seeing.

3. Systalectics asks us to think holistically and include context. Video speeds by and focuses on the emotional connection. So we learn that everything we need to know is what we can see or feel.

The speed of video, the pacing of video, the focus of video are all beyond our control. Video simplifies and flattens a world that is complex and multidimensional. In the process, the world with which we are left asks less of us, asks us to stop thinking so much.

The Canadian-American writer Rivka Galchen recently remarked that “firsthand knowledge is an obstacle to insight,” and an over-reliance on video illustrates the point very well. By focusing on what can be seen we are encouraged to individualize everything we take in via the screen.

The old saying goes, “Seeing is believing,” not “Seeing is understanding.” And that is sadly true. A graphics-oriented information system is aimed at getting us to believe things rather than understand things. For true understanding we need to engage with language, to take some time to make connections and truly test our thinking. That’s what Nygaard Notes is here to do.

This essay originally appeared in NN Number 628, July 25 2018.

I’ve been talking about two stories and two images in the news—the image of a crying toddler and the image of grieving crime victims—and I claim that both are true and both are false.
[Go here if you want to see the previous article referenced here.]
Sometimes visual images in the news serve to deepen our understanding of current events. Sometimes they lead us down Propaganda Lane. What to do? Here’s a three-step process to use when encountering emotional images in the daily news.

Step #1: Notice Your Emotional Reaction

Becoming conscious of our emotional reactions is a good thing to do with any bit of new information, but especially with visual images. Photos and videos have a powerful ability to elicit emotions, far more powerful than words. (It pains me, as a writer, to say this!) Notice when an image enrages you or reassures you, excites you or calms you. Then ask yourself what is connected to that emotional reaction. The simple act of bringing to consciousness our emotional response is a powerful anti-propaganda tool. Visual images are often designed to stimulate certain emotional responses, and if you find that you are moved to act based on your emotional response, it’s a good idea to be aware of that, and to give it some thought. Before acting.

Step #2: Name and Assess the Message

Take a few minutes to examine the message being reinforced by the image, and ask yourself if that message is valid. In the case of the image of the crying girl mentioned elsewhere in this issue, the message is that small children are being traumatized as a result of U.S. immigration policy. True? Check it out.

In the case of the image of grieving crime victims, the message is that increased immigration leads to increased crime. As we have seen, that’s not true, and it would take only a moment to find this out. In the current example, all that was necessary in most cases was to read the actual article, as many media reports did refute the claim as it was being reported.

I discussed these first two Steps in the previous essay. But not the next Step.

Step #3: Propaganda Check

Remember that propaganda operates on two levels. The first level, Overt Propaganda, is the specific thing that the viewer is supposed to believe. The second level, Deep Propaganda, is the idea, or set of ideas, that make the Overt Propaganda believable. Overt Propaganda is specific and conscious, and it comes from outside of ourselves. Deep Propaganda tends to be general and unconscious, and it lives inside of us.

If you’ve already noticed your emotional reaction (Step 1) and named the message that provoked your reaction (Step 2), then you’re halfway there. If the Overt Propaganda equating immigration with crime is easy to believe—despite being false—then ask yourself: What is the Deep Propaganda in my head that makes it believable? Perhaps it’s bigotry of one sort or another. In a deeply-racist society, a charge of criminality against dark-skinned people just “makes sense” to many white people. And, since so much of our political and media leadership are white, the rightness of the message will tend to be strongly reinforced. Similarly, xenophobia may be the Deep Propaganda that makes immigrants seem threatening to native-born white people, which provides an emotional basis to support the idea that immigrants are dangerous criminals. Living in a society that does so much to normalize whiteness (and pathologize anyone who doesn’t fit in that box) leads many white people to create fables about the “other” that serve a Deep Propaganda function such as we see here. We’re all infected with Deep Propaganda; it’s a social disease.

“The Answer Is It’s Not True”

Now, having done our homework, let’s look again at our two images, and how both of them are true and false, and make some judgements.

The image of the little girl crying enhanced my ability to empathize. When I learned later that this girl was not separated from her mother, it really didn’t change anything, because I know that there are many other children who have been separated and who could have been photographed. So the image, while literally false, was “true” in the sense that it supported an emotional understanding of something that is actually going on. I’d call that good journalism.

The grieving families image was “true” in the sense that these people have indeed suffered due to the actions of immigrants. But the message that was reinforced by seeing and hearing the anguish of these families—that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than native-born USAmericans—is false.

The President, in his remarks at the Angel Families event on June 22nd, said: “I always hear that, ‘Oh, no, the population [of immigrants] is safer than the people that live in the country.’ You’ve heard that, fellas. Right? You’ve heard that. I hear it so much. And I say, ‘Is that possible?’ The answer is it’s not true. You hear it’s like they’re better people than what we have—than our citizens. It’s not true.”

As we’ve seen, it IS true, and whether or not the President is lying or actually believes what he is saying here does not interest me; the propaganda effect is the same either way.

Images in the news can enhance our emotional understanding of actual social realities. And I know that they can also stimulate emotions that reinforce Deep Propaganda ideas that already exist in the culture, and in me. Deeper understanding? Or Propaganda? Following the three-step process outlined here can help us to tell the difference.