CORROSIVE SECRETS

Techniques of propaganda generation

A number of techniques which are based on social psychological research have been used to generate propaganda. These include:

• Appeal to authority: Appeals to authority cite prominent figures in support of a position idea, argument, or course of action.
• Appeal to fear: Appeals to fear seek to build support by instilling fear in the general population, for example, Joseph Goebbels exploited Theodore Kaufman's Germany Must Perish! to claim that the Allies sought the extermination of the German people.
• Appeal to Prejudice: Using loaded or emotive terms to attach value or moral goodness to believing the proposition. "A reasonable person would agree that our income tax is too low."
• Argumentum ad nauseam: Uses tireless repetition. An idea once repeated enough times, is taken as the truth. Works best when media sources are limited and controlled by the propagator.
• Bandwagon effect: Bandwagon appeals attempt to persuade the target audience to take the course of action that "everyone else is taking."
  • Inevitable victory: invites those not already on the bandwagon to join those already on the road to certain victory. Those already or at least partially on the bandwagon are reassured that staying aboard is their best course of action.
  • Join the crowd: This technique reinforces people's natural desire to be on the winning side. This technique is used to convince the audience that a program is an expression of an irresistible mass movement and that it is in their best interest to join.
• Black-and-white fallacy: Presenting only two choices, with the product or idea being propagated as the better choice (for example, you can have an unhealthy, unreliable engine, or you can use Brand X oil).
• Common man: The "plain folks" or "common man" approach attempts to convince the audience that the propagandist's positions reflect the common sense of the people. It is designed to win the confidence of the audience by communicating in the common manner and style of the target audience. Propagandists use ordinary language and mannerisms (and clothe their message in face-to-face and audiovisual communications) in attempting to identify their point of view with that of the average person.
• Demonizing the “enemy”: Projecting a person or idea as the "enemy" through suggestion or false accusations.
• Direct order: This technique hopes to simplify the decision making process. The propagandist uses images and words to tell the audience exactly what actions to take, eliminating any other possible choices. Authority figures can be used to give the order, overlapping it with the Appeal to authority technique, but not necessarily. The Uncle Sam "I want you" image is an example of this technique.
• Euphoria: The use of an event that generates euphoria or happiness in lieu of spreading more sadness, or using a good event to try to cover up another, or creating a celebratory event in the hopes of boosting morale.
• Flag-waving: An attempt to justify an action on the grounds that doing so will make one more patriotic, or in some way benefit a group, country, or idea. The feeling of patriotism which this technique attempts to inspire may diminish or entirely omit one's capability for rational examination of the matter in question.
• Glittering generality: Glittering generalities are emotionally appealing words applied to a product or idea, but which present no concrete argument or analysis. A famous example is the campaign slogan "Ford has a better idea!"
• Obtain disapproval: This technique is used to persuade a target audience to disapprove of an action or idea by suggesting that the idea is popular with groups hated, feared, or held in contempt by the target audience. Thus if a group which supports a certain policy is led to believe that undesirable, subversive, or contemptible people support the same policy, then the members of the group may decide to change their original position.
• Quotes out of Context: Selective editing of quotes which can change meanings. Political "documentaries" often make use of this technique.
• Red herring: Presenting data that is irrelevant, and then claiming that it validates your argument.
• Scapegoating: Assigning blame to an individual or group that isn't really responsible, thus alleviating feelings of guilt from responsible parties and/or distracting attention from the need to fix the problem for which blame is being assigned.
• Slogans: A slogan is a brief, striking phrase that may include labeling and stereotyping. Although slogans may be enlisted to support reasoned ideas, in practice they tend to act only as emotional appeals. For example, "blood for oil" or "cut and run" are slogans used by those who view a situation. Similarly, the names of the military campaigns, such as "enduring freedom" or "just cause," may also be regarded to be slogans.
• Stereotyping or Name Calling or Labeling: This technique attempts to arouse prejudices in an audience by labeling the object of the propaganda campaign as something the target audience fears, hates, loathes, or finds undesirable. For instance, reporting on a foreign country or social group may focus on the stereotypical traits that the reader expects, even though they are far from being representative of the whole country or group.
• Testimonial: Testimonials are quotations, in or out of context, cited to support or reject a given policy, action, program, or personality. The reputation or the role (expert or respected public figure) of the individual giving the statement is exploited. The testimonial places the official sanction of a respected person or authority on a propaganda message, in an effort to cause the target audience to identify itself with the authority or to accept the authority's opinions and beliefs as its own.

The following are excerpts from Andrew’s new book The Hope. After the excerpts you will find a link to listen free to Andrew’s amazing uplifting speech given at The Prophets Conference University of Oxford, England.

“The Sacred Activist will have to encounter two highly evolved forms of narcissism in himself—the narcissism of the mystic and the narcissism of the activist. One of the reasons why the mystical renaissance is not as powerful as it should be and activists are not as persuasive and skilful as they need to become is because both groups, though made up of intelligent and concerned beings, suffer from their own forms of narcissism that only shadow work can expose, transform, and heal.

“The mystic’s shadow of narcissism as an addiction to transcendence, as an escapism from responsibility from the real, as a sometimes passive and childish belief that the Divine will take care of everything, and as a subtle but devastating denial of the reality of evil and the heartbreaking misery of the world. In the course of my path I have succumbed to all of these forms of narcissism; I see now how resourcefully I justified and even celebrated them with the same ingenuity that a drug addict uses to justify his addiction.”

“The sign that you are beginning to enter into communion with the One is that you experience the beginnings of what I call the Great Joy, with its triumphant Yes that dances through, wisdom, and above all the One’s terrible and amazing games of opposites. This Great Joy is known by all authentic mystics as the ultimate reality of God and, therefore, of all realities created from that ultimate reality.

"Sacred Activism at its highest and deepest is this Joy, this Yes, in action."

Andrew Harvey Oxford scholar and visionary, believes that our survival depends on Sacred Activism, a fusion of profound mystical awareness, passion, clarity and sacred practice with wise, dedicated, radical action. This fusion, he warns, may be the sole key to preservation of man and nature.

“It has become increasingly clear that only Sacred Activism—the fusion of the deepest mystical knowledge, peace, strength, and stamina with calm, focused, and radical action in every arena of society, culture, economics, and politics--can be of help in our growing world crisis. Neither a purely "spiritual" nor simply "activist" approach can solve our enormous problems. The core teachings of all the major mystical paths make it clear that there is, within human beings, an enormous unused reservoir of pure divine power, the pure power of sacred wisdom consciousness, passion, and compassion--the power of what Jesus called the kingdom of heaven, and of what in Hinduism is known as bliss-consciousness. These core teachings also reveal that if we can learn how to use this power—or rather how to let it use us as its luminous instruments--we will harness the "energies of love" and discover for ourselves how a clear, focused, purified, divine passion devoted to transformative action on all levels can birth a new world.”
www.andrewharvey.net