Independent Periodic News and Analysis
Greetings,
Here’s a note about what I might call the rebirth of the Nygaard Notes project:
For 25 years now I have organized Nygaard Notes like a business. Subscriptions have always been free, but I held Pledge Drives to get donations to support the project, and many of you responded – so generously and for so many years – Thank You! I reported that income on my taxes, sent out reminders every year asking people to renew their Pledges, tracked everything on a big spreadsheet, etc.
I’m done with all that! So please don’t send me any money. I’ve started drawing on my Social Security “retirement” benefits, so I don’t need the income to live. And I don’t want to do the bookkeeping, taxes, record-keeping etc that a business—even a tiny business like Nygaard Notes—requires.
I just want to write, and to do my part to support the social transformation that is needed to keep the planet habitable. And to help us move away from an Individualistic and Competitive culture and toward a Social and Cooperative one. That’s always been the point of Nygaard Notes. That’s not going to change.
If you want to support the Nygaard Notes project, you could tell your friends, colleagues, family, and others to subscribe to the Notes! Or… You could write me letters and emails telling me about how you took action in response to something you read here: Did you join an activist group you learned about in the Notes? Did you attend your first-ever protest? Did you take the money you would have used to support Nygaard Notes and instead donated it to one of the many activist groups I have written about? Have you altered the course of your life, in big or small ways, as a result of changes in your consciousness? (Stimulated by Nygaard Notes or otherwise.)
Finally… Please write to me if you have something to say. Positive or negative, it’s all fuel for the fire that keeps me going. I read and respond to every piece of mail I get (I think), and I hope and believe that the act of writing down what you are thinking will help you think more clearly. That’s certainly how it works for me. Maybe it could be for you, too.
How often is The New Nygaard Notes going to come out? I have no idea. What will I be writing about? I don’t know. How long will this publication exist? Don’t ask me. All I know is that I’ll be awake and alert, traveling down the Road of Life, and writing about what I see and experience. And I would be honored if you were to come along for the ride!
Welcome to The New Nygaard Notes!
Here’s the heading of Chapter One in a 2017 book by Timothy Snyder called On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century:
Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
The Lesson? Do Not Obey in Advance.
Most of this issue of the Notes is a reprint from 17 years ago. (This was back in the “Good Old Days” when we thought that George W. Bush was about as bad as it could get! Sigh…) And it looks like there will be another reprint coming up before too long. What is going on? Am I getting lazy in my old age? I don’t think so.
It’s just that I wanted to discuss why the social phenomenon that we call Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, or DEI, has been declared MAGA Enemy #1 by the architects of Project 2025, which I call The Othering Project. And this reprint, from NN #416, seems like a good introduction to that discussion. It summarizes the key Nygaard Notes concept of the Two Levels of Propaganda, which I’ll be discussing soon (probably in the next issue) in relation to Donald Trump and what he calls “Common Sense.”
Secondly, while this 2008 essay doesn’t mention Common Sense as such, it does begin to talk about the concept of “Diversity.” Coming soon in Nygaard Notes: Diversity in the Common Sense Propaganda System. But first, some 17-year-old thoughts on public confusion…
The following essay was originally published in Nygaard Notes Number 416, back on August 24, 2008.
The confusion that I talked about in the previous article [in 2008] is the confusion between the goal of reducing drug abuse and addiction, on the one hand, and the strategy of trying to suppress and control the “market” that supplies drugs, which we call the “War on Drugs,” on the other.
The confusion I talked about last week was the confusion between the goal of reducing the threat of terrorism, on the one hand, and the strategy of waging a “War on Terror,” on the other.
The other confusion I talked about last week was the confusion between the goal of reducing hunger, on the one hand, and the strategy of attempting to increase the already-sufficient amount of food in the world, on the other.
And the week before that, the confusion I talked about was the confusion between the goal of economic well-being, on the one hand, and the strategy of promoting economic “growth,” on the other.
There seems to be a pattern here, doesn’t there? There’s a lot of confusion in our public discussion—Amartya Sen calls it “Public Reasoning”—about these important issues, and it’s not limited to these few topics I’ve been talking about. People get confused all the time in the way we think about goals and strategies. People want cheaper energy, and they think offshore drilling will help. It won’t. People want to reduce the number of murders, and they think that the death penalty helps with that. It doesn’t. People want to reduce teenage pregnancy, and they think that preaching “abstinence” will reduce it. It hasn’t so far, and doesn’t look like it ever will. People want more accessible health care, and they think that “more competition” will help. Again, no evidence for that. And on and on. What the #&%@$ … ?!?
What is “Public Reasoning?”
Arizona State political scientist Clark Miller defines “Public Reasoning” as “a diverse array of formal and informal means by which societies identify, frame, evaluate, and make sense of the policy challenges they face.” All of the things I mention above are, in part, “policy challenges.” And we have a hard time reasoning about them together when we’re so often confused. So, why are we so confused and how can we get un-confused?
I think the capacity of people in the United States to engage in effective Public Reasoning has been poisoned by a variety of factors. Although it is very complex, I think we can talk about three key factors that work together to make our Public Reasoning very confused and confusing. They are:
1. Propaganda, both Overt and Deep. (See NN#172.)
2. Power. By this I refer to power both within the U.S. system and in the larger world, and the unequal distribution in both places.
3. Lack of diversity. That is, the institutions in charge of informing the public discussion are dominated by people who tend to share the same assumptions about the world.
Let’s take these one at a time.
Propaganda
As I say all the time, there are two levels of Propaganda, Overt and Deep. While Overt Propaganda tends to be specific and conscious, Deep Propaganda is usually general and unconscious. Overt Propaganda, in other words, is the thing we are supposed to believe, while Deep Propaganda is what makes it believable.
Overt Propaganda is propelled by personal psychology and also by institutional forces. On a personal level, people like to believe that they are making the world a better place. So, when we think about what we have done, we tend to put our actions in the best possible light. Almost nobody says to themselves, “I am evil, and I am doing evil things.” I’m always acting for the greater good (so are you!), and people in power have the same tendency to self-delusion as the rest of us.
In large institutions, and sometimes small ones, there are special people designated to present the organization in the best light. In institutions (especially public ones), people’s jobs and livelihoods often depend on the institution being perceived in a good light. Propaganda thrives in such environments. Whether a specific piece of Overt Propaganda is the result of self-delusion or intentional deception doesn’t really matter. The result is the same, and the result is Overt Propaganda that is put out through the media, at conferences, in official reports, and in all the other ways that ideas get out and into our heads.
Power
The United States has been a “Superpower” for many decades, in a world system in which power is distributed in a spectacularly unequal way. All of the most powerful international institutions are dominated by the U.S. and its allies, from economic institutions to military alliances to the United Nations, where the U.S. and a few other nations have veto power over the rest of the world. In addition, U.S. corporations have long exported ideas and ideology through their dominance in media, entertainment, and culture. One of the things that this means is that the “American way” of doing things—and seeing things—becomes the world’s way of doing and seeing things. An example would be the one I pointed out in the essay on drugs in this issue, where the World Health Organization told us that the U.S. “has been driving much of the world’s drug research and drug policy agenda.” It doesn’t matter that there’s no evidence that it’s an effective agenda. The World’s Only Superpower says it is.
The people at the top of any system will want to maintain that system, since it works for them. And the nations at the top of the international system are no different. The U.S., sitting at the top of the international hierarchy for decades now, naturally has constructed a system of beliefs that makes it seem “right” that we run the world—“Manifest Destiny,” “Democracy Promotion,” whatever. And, since part of our power is the power to distribute such ideas around the world, much of the world gets a message that “There is no alternative” to U.S. dominance, and probably shouldn’t be. These are the kinds of beliefs that powerful people—let’s call them “elites”—have come to accept, and they are the kind that make a lot of their Overt Propaganda believable (to them and to anyone who shares those beliefs).
A specific example of a self-serving belief would be the belief that “Might Makes Right.” It shouldn’t surprise anyone that such a belief appeals to the mightiest among us. It is this belief that leads us to declare “war” on things like terror, drugs, crime, and so forth, and justifies all sorts of violence and force in the attempt to “win” these wars. Another such belief might be the belief that “We’re The Good Guys.” That belief is the one which makes it possible to believe, for example, that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was naked imperialism, while the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a mission of “democracy promotion.” Such beliefs are examples of what I call Deep Propaganda, and we all have some basic beliefs that make us susceptible to certain types of Overt Propaganda, and resistant to others.
There is another way that power corrupts our Public Reasoning within the United States. Since wealth means power and wealth is so unevenly distributed here at home, here also we have a political and cultural system that is largely controlled by people who are the “winners.” “Winners” tend to share certain beliefs, like the belief that they are “winners” because they deserve to be. This belief takes many forms, but it includes the belief that they know “what is best” for everyone. Anyone who doesn’t agree with this is then perceived as “unfit” to be in leadership, or possibly a “threat” to “law and order,” and so forth.
Within a basic framework of Power, it is acceptable to urge, beg, encourage, and righteously demand that The Powerful act in different ways. So, we can have movements for “corporate responsibility,” and calls for more “philanthropy,” and so forth. But anyone who attempts to inject into our Public Reasoning a serious call for changes in the way that power and wealth are distributed throughout the society will be relegated to the sidelines. And that is the real problem with…
A Lack of Diversity
I talk all the time about the patterns of ideas within our intellectual culture and how predictable and recognizable they are. That is so because of the lack of diversity within the institutions that inform us, particularly our mass media. And, in this case, what I mean by “lack of diversity” is that when we have corporate or government officials speaking to the media, what we tend to have is powerful people speaking to other powerful people. On a basic level, they will tend to share the same basic ideas about how the world works. And those basic ideas—Might Makes Right, We’re the Good Guys, etc—make the purveyors of news and ideas easy pickings for the people who produce the Overt Propaganda that confuses our Public Reasoning so effectively.
In our grossly unequal system, assuring that media people are the “right kinds” of people is not done through a totalitarian use of force. It’s far more subtle, and seems like a “natural” process, a “meritocracy.” It’s not. It’s entirely controlled by a certain class of people who function in a corporate environment in which they get to decide which people are “good sources” and which are “bad sources” of information for the purpose of informing our Public Reasoning. That is, which people will go along with conventional wisdom, and which people will not.
The reason I have been going on at length the past couple of weeks on a few examples of confusion is to bring into focus some of the current conventional wisdom—that is, the Deep Propaganda—that is so widely-shared by those “in the loop” that no one is inclined to challenge it.
Two of the examples that I have discussed are the War on Drugs and the War on Terror. Both of these are built upon the foundational premise that Might Makes Right, which justifies huge expenditures in money and human life in an attempt to suppress things we don’t like. A different premise (“Compassion Makes Right”?) might lead us toward a different, non-violent, engagement with these problems in pursuit of the same goals: reducing the harmful effects of drug addiction and the problem of terrorism.
The other two examples I’ve been talking about are economic welfare and hunger. In both of these cases the answers are popularly understood to be a need for “more,” as in “economic growth” (more wealth) and “a new Green Revolution” (more food). The foundational premise here is the belief that We’re the Good Guys. This Deep Propaganda is what makes it seem logical to people that scarcity must be the problem. Why? Because the system (set up and maintained by U.S. leadership) must be fair and just, since we’re the Good Guys. Therefore, if people don’t have enough money or food, it must be because there simply isn’t enough money or food to go around. It’s very logical, if you start with the “right” premises.
Power, Propaganda, Diversity: What To Do?
In a nutshell, we can’t think clearly about the crucial issues of the day—that is, our Public Reasoning is corrupted—because we live within a political system that distributes POWER unequally. That power is then used to maintain itself. This happens in many ways, one of which is by assuring that we don’t have a DIVERSE set of voices that might include those that might challenge the nature of the system. So the people who produce the OVERT PROPAGANDA that confuses us are rarely challenged because the people in a position to do so share the DEEP PROPAGANDA beliefs that make them believe what they are told.
All of these things are connected. Unequal POWER allows a few people to ascend to positions where they get to spout whatever OVERT PROPAGANDA they want. A LACK OF DIVERSITY in our media and other institutions that distribute that OVERT PROPAGANDA assures that, for the most part, the DEEP PROPAGANDA that makes the powerful people’s OVERT PROPAGANDA believable is rarely questioned. Then the loop starts over: The less the DEEP PROPAGANDA is questioned, the more OVERT PROPAGANDA is allowed to enter the public consciousness. And that makes it harder for anyone to imagine what a different system might be like. And the less people can imagine an alternative, the more the current system seems “natural” and “right.”
How to break in to such a system? You can pick any of the points that I have mentioned. You can start to imagine different ways to distribute power, and work to bring them into being. You can work to expose and counter propaganda wherever it is found. You can work to bring a more diverse set of people into leadership in your organization or community.
Work on media. Work to amplify voices in your community, your state, your country, that think outside the box. Support independent media. Give free gift subscriptions to Nygaard Notes, or subscriptions to other independent media. Form a Media Response Group on the issues that you care about, and communicate with the corporate media in your community.
Many people are already working on all of these things, and many others. Maybe you are one of them. Or maybe you are just about to join with them.
Start wherever you want, and I suggest using a Three Step Approach to improving our Public Reasoning: Analyze, Organize, Act. Step One: Analyze the barriers to diversity in our Public Reasoning. Step Two: Organize a group, or join one that’s already organized. Step Three: DO whatever your analysis suggests will promote change.
That’s not too confusing.