Number 419 November 14, 2008

This Week: Update on the Nygaard Notes Book

"Quote" of the Week
So.... How's That Book Coming Along?
What's the Plan for the Book?
 

Greetings,

It's been a while since the last Nygaard Notes, hasn't it? It's because I've been busy trying to put together a book, y'know. This issue of the Notes is a special "Mid-Hiatus Book Update Edition," for those who want to know how it's going. The next "regular" issue of Nygaard Notes will probably come your way sometime in January 2009.

In the meantime, several people have asked for a little report on the progress of the book. Also, it seems like a good time for me to pause and reflect on what I'm trying to do with the book. Finally, this is a chance to ask for feedback from you on what I have come up with so far. Any thoughts at all would be welcome—this is all new to me!

One new thing, I'm learning, is that a book is so big that it is very easy to lose sight of the overall shape and coherence of the whole as I work on the pieces. So I am including in this issue a tentative outline of the current "shape" of the book. Let me know, if you are so moved: Does it make sense so far?

Otherwise, I extend my apologies to those of you who have missed the Notes the past couple of months. Special apologies to those of you who took the time to write and tell me so! It won't be long now. Plus, I think this book will be worth it. I probably should have done it long ago.

All is well here at Nygaard Notes. I've missed hearing from you all, but the work is going well, and you'll see the results as soon as possible.

In solidarity,

Nygaard

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"Quote" of the Week:

You voted. Now what?

This fall's "Quote" (of the season?) comes from Barack Obama. The setting was a Presidential Candidates Debate on January 21, 2008 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina between Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama. Toward the end of the debate, moderator Wolf Blitzer asked the idiotic question, "If Dr. Martin Luther King were alive today . . .why do you think he would -- or why should he endorse you?"

Edwards gave "two reasons," and Clinton said something about "making his legacy real." But Senator Obama said something completely different. He said,

"Well, I don't think Dr. King would endorse any of us. I think what he would call upon the American people to do is to hold us accountable... I believe change does not happen from the top down; it happens from the bottom up. Dr. King understood that. It was those women who were willing to walk instead of ride the bus. It was union workers who were willing to take on violence and intimidation to get the right to organize. It was women who decided, ‘You know, I'm as smart as my husband; I better get the right to vote,' ... them arguing, mobilizing, agitating and ultimately forcing elected officials to be accountable. I think that's the key."

Will the Obama presidency turn out to mark a real change from, not only Bush, but from the entire last century, sometimes referred to as The American Century? Or will it simply be a "kinder and gentler" face on the violence and squalor that might be expected to accompany the decline of an Empire? If we take our new President at his word, then we know that the choice is, ultimately, not his. It's ours.


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So.... How about That Book?

Despite the fact that Nygaard Notes has been on hiatus since its ten-year birthday on September 5th, everything has not been quiet here at Nygaard Notes World Headquarters. What have I been up to?, people ask me.

The first thing I did after September 5th—and this surprised me—was to take a two-week mental vacation. Anyone who wrote me during that time knows that it was really a vacation, too. I didn't realize that I had such brain fatigue until I slowed down a bit. I used the time to catch up on some personal things, work at my other jobs, etc. And to rest my brain.

The Nygaard Notes book project began after that, and I started by reading through the entire Nygaard Notes archive. More brain fatigue! Then I made a list of the various articles that I thought merited consideration for book purposes. All of that took approximately forever, but was not without its rewards. However, that first list added up to about 900 pages, so...

Next I read through all of the comments that readers had sent me over the years, which was supposed to help me see which articles got the most response, which would in turn help me narrow down my own list. What actually happened is that I found several pieces that readers liked that I had not marked for inclusion. So the list got longer. Hmmm....

Next I attempted to think of possible "themes" to use in organizing the many candidates. Themes like "Corporatism" and "Media Empowerment" and "Race" and "Ideology" and "Propaganda" and "Dialectics" and "Public Reasoning," and so forth. So I flailed away at that for a while.

Next I arranged the different themes to see how they read, and how long they were. For instance, I found out that I have written about 188 (book-length) pages on "Media Empowerment" and 70 pages on "Dialectics," and so forth.

I have also had informal conversations with various people about publishers, and editing, and so forth. Soon I hope to begin having more formal ones.

Evolution of the Project

Since I first got this book idea I have imagined that there are basically two different ways to approach it. One was just to write a book from the ground up. I had that idea years ago (I actually have ideas for about five different books) but rejected it as too time-consuming and ambitious for my first outing into this new world of book-building.

The second option has been suggested by numerous readers over the years, and that is to simply collect some already-published pieces and publish them as a collection of essays. That seemed more do-able, so that's what I set out to do two months ago.

A couple of recent conversations have steered me toward a third option, and that is to sort-of combine the first two ideas. That is, I am now trying to construct a book that is made up mostly of previous writings, but that also includes some new writing to fill in the gaps that suddenly appear when I put all the individual pieces together. I'll explain what that means in a separate piece in this mid-hiatus Special Issue.

This new idea is more work than a simple collection, so it has slowed down the overall progress a bit. But I think it's worth it. Something is happening, anyway.

Some of you have offered to help out with reading, editing, feedback-giving, and so forth. I haven't forgotten! You'll be hearing from me shortly. I also mentioned the possibility of some public readings, but I'm not sure that's going to happen. If anyone else wants to do any of this kind of thing, let me know. I hope to have something ready to read pretty soon.

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What's the Plan for the Book?

It is overstating it to say that I actually have a "plan" at this point. What I have is some tentative ideas about how to put this book together, and I would love to hear any responses to this so-called plan. NOTE: Plans change, so all I can say is that this piece summarizes the plan as of November 14th, 2008.

Possible Titles

The title of a book should give you an idea about what you will find there. As it turns out, I may not get to choose the title, but I still want to have one for when I approach publishers with whatever manuscript I end up with. So here are a few ideas I've come up with, or that have been suggested, or that I just thought of this minute:

"What Makes It Believable: Propaganda and the Culture That Supports It"
or "...the Culture that Needs It" or Breeds It, or Creates It, or....

"Re-Thinking Propaganda: An Anti-Conspiracy Theory of Media"
or "A Non-Conspiracy Theory..."

"Everyday Propaganda: The Difference Between What We Know and What We are Told"

"Don't Believe Everything You Think: A How-To Guide for Navigating the Media"

"Beyond Truth and Reality: Clear Thinking in the Age of Information"
or "Beyond Truth and Reality: Deciding What to Believe in the Age of (Too Much) Information"

"Asking the Right Questions: Propaganda in the Post-Bush Era"

"Modern Propaganda: Why Lies Sound True and What We Can Do About It"

"Power, Propaganda, and PR: How Our Imaginations are Tamed, Caged, and De-Clawed"

You get the idea.

Arrangement of the Book

At the moment I am thinking of a series of essays arranged in a book of three "parts."

PART ONE: WHAT IS PROPAGANDA AND HOW DOES IT WORK? This part might start out with the Nygaard Notes definition of Propaganda. It's different from what the dictionary says, and here it is:

Propaganda is the process by which particular ideas, doctrines, images, and ideologies are consistently produced and distributed throughout a social system, and in which countervailing ideas, doctrines, images, and ideologies are systematically repressed and/or suppressed.

Then we would offer some Nygaard Notes essays (all re-worked and updated and newly-edited, of course). Those essays might include:

* What is Propaganda? (First published in the year 2005)
* Propaganda, Level I: Overt Propaganda (2002)
* Propaganda, Level II: Deep Propaganda (2002)
* How Overt and Deep Propaganda Work: A Case Study (2005)
* So... How About That Campaign? The Investment Theory of Money in Politics (2000)
* An Investment Theory of Ideology in the Media (2006)
* Know Your Propaganda ABC's (2003) OR The ABCs of Propaganda (2006)
* Economics, Art and Ideology (2005)
* The 2005 "Propaganda Series," which includes: When Do We See Propaganda? Six Red Flags; Who Does Propaganda?; How Propaganda Works: The Profit Factor; How Propaganda Works: Transmitting Ideology; How Propaganda Works: Three Key Concepts; How Propaganda Works: "Branding"; Why Propaganda 1: To Marginalize Dissent; Why Propaganda 2: Six Specific Reasons; Dealing with Cancer, Dealing with Propaganda: An Analogy

PART TWO: WHAT'S THE PROBLEM WITH PROPAGANDA? How does it affect our culture and how does it affect our individual imaginations?

This part might start out by identifying some "foundational ideas" in US culture (those "particular ideas, doctrines, images, and ideologies" I talk about). Essays here might include:

* What is "Hegemony?" And Why Do I Care? (2005)
* Here I would possibly write a new piece on how cultural hegemony comes about (One problem: I don't know how it comes about, exactly. I'd have to write this one.)
* The Left, Right, Center, Other series from 2001, including: Left, Right, Center, Other"; Left, Right, Center...Oh, Forget It; Left, Right, Center, or...?; Left, Right, Center, Part 4: Philosophy, Ideology, and Policy; and No More "Left" and "Right:" Introducing New Terms
* Fetishes, Cults, and Infinite Possibilities (2002) (the Three Pillars of US ideology)
* Democracy and the Free Market (1999)
* Balancing Democracy and Freedom (2002)
* Beyond Freedom to Liberation (2002)
* Race and Compassion (1999)
* Lebanon: Root Causes and Unconventional Thinking (2006) (Here I introduced the ideas of different "ways of thinking" called DSS and MCD)
* Thinking About Wars, and So Forth (2006) (I explain DSS---Dualistic, Simplistic, and Static—and MCD—Multi-faceted, Complex, and Dynamic—thinking)
* Spotting Ideology in the Smallest News Articles (2003)
* "Strange, Almost Paranoid" Thinking from Europe (2003)
* Achieving (Which?) Goals by "Putting Ideology Aside" (2008)
* Individual Versus Social: About My Agenda (2005)
* Beyond Good and Evil, Part 1: The First Cold War (2002)
* Beyond Good and Evil, Part 2: From No to Yes (2002)
* Beyond Good and Evil: A Brief Epilogue (2002)

PART THREE: A DIFFERENT VISION. How do we, individually, protect ourselves from Propaganda, and how do we, collectively, reduce the power of Propaganda so we can think more clearly and act more effectively?

Some essays here might be:

* Morals, Ethics, Values, and Thinking (2000)
* Thinking "Systems" (2004)
* Thinking Dialectically (2004)
* The Power of Action (2004)
* Maybe "An Investment Theory of Ideology in the Media" should be here instead of in Part One?)
* The Democracy Series from 2007, including: Fishing, Freedom, and Democracy; Democracy in a Cynical Culture; The Skills and Arts of Democracy; The Values of a Democratic System; Getting Better at Doing Democracy; How We Understand Democracy, and Why; Policies that Support Radical Democracy.

(If you want to read, or re-read, any of these essays, you know you can go to the Nygaard Notes website and find them all. Or you can just use your search engine, type in "Nygaard Notes" and the title, and you'll find it. You might also find, as I just did, that Nygaard Notes has been cited in a scholarly study from the University of Bahrain!)

Well, that's the plan at the moment. The next steps will include the editing and updating, possible further writing, footnoting, choosing chapter-head quotations, and so forth.

By the first of the year I hope to have some sort of manuscript that adds up to somewhere between 200 and 300 pages. Then I will have to start trying to convince someone in the publishing business that the world would be a better place if this book were to see the light of day. Actually, what I should probably say is that I will try to convince some publisher that they could make some money if they published this book. That's how they think, isn't it?

So, there you go. That's where I find myself after two months of work. If you have any feedback on any of this—and I mean ANY of this—please write or email me with your criticisms, anecdotes, excitement, or ideas. Thanks!

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