I am unsure of the point of this essay. Everything involves some level of propaganda, and it is omnipresent. The essay would be more interesting to me if it could demonstrate instances of the absence of propaganda, if such a thing exists.
Nice piece, and a pleasure to read. If you wish to venture from the realm of clean and well ordered theory into the gnarly realm of applied social science, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on various prominent categories of propaganda. The first category—universal awareness—is where everyone knows that the information landscape is propaganda and adjusts their lives, habits, and cognitive patterns accordingly (e.g., postwar Russia). The second category—unaware immersion—is where most people are unaware of a given ambient background of propaganda (e.g., postwar America), which perhaps forces us to contemplate the differences between myth and propaganda. A third category—dueling populist polarization—emerges when oppositional populisms face off, with each side’s messaging accepted by its intended audience and labeled propaganda by opponents; this one forces us to meditate on the existence of truth. In re this third category It is worth noting the obvious impossibility of a perfectly symmetrical what-aboutist landscape in which both sides are magically and equally false; asymmetries in fact, evidence, and institutional power almost always give one side a greater share of the distortion. As a side salad, it would also be amusing to consider intentional propaganda—news that is unashamedly and blatantly biased as part of its brand identity. In the early days of the printing press, this form of propaganda prevailed, and it seems like now would be a great moment for scholars and historians to weigh the pros and cons of this older, more transparent model. Starting in the 1990s we saw a monopolar reemergence of this style of news reporting, and I have yet to encounter a well-posed thought-piece that uncovers potential insights about our current media landscape and the political lines it draws—dividing into self-aware bias on one hand, and blazing propaganda on the other. My hunch is that a thorough and honest analysis might reveal that, at this moment, the liberal cohort may be due for a healthy amount of critical self-reflection, and the conservatives may find that certain changes of tone could tilt things in their favor. For any young academic ready to absorb some slings and arrows from all directions, there ought to be a tenure argument hiding in these hostile but fertile marshes.
Excellent post. I always like reading philosophers because they excel at providing precise, accurate definitions and then follow through on them to all of the implications. This topic is normally very muddy so this effort is very much appreciated here.
I see a lot of pushback from readers re: the definition. I do think it would be possible to choose a much narrower definition, one where the power and interest of the government must be the driving force (e.g. Soviet Propaganda). This was not Bernays’ original meaning (he was in the PR game for companies, and is generally credited with popularizing the term). However, for many people it has come to mean something like this. I am just returning from a conference where a paper was presented on the new, “decentralized” form of Chinese state propaganda. Excellent paper, but I asked the author whether the uncoordinated behavior they document should really still be called “propaganda.” Not that it couldn’t be, but do we lose something when we broaden the term in this way.
But in a way, this is putting the semantics over the phenomenon. @Dan Williams could have called this “manipulative-speech” — defined it exactly the same way, with exactly the same implications. Then we couldn’t object to the term, but would have to wrestle with the conclusions for what they say—that we engage in it without realizing it, that our own minds are polluted by it etc. Or, in other words, that what Donald Trump does is, at least, plausibly what we all do unless we can figure out some place to draw a line, or some variable that gives us a matter of degree. Which is terrible to think.
The other objection I see is that defining propaganda as “not true” seems to reify and objective truth that we “now know” has been debunked. I have a way to address this but it will require more than a comment.
To the haters: what Dan is showing is that whilst political propaganda is usually taken as a genus, it is in fact a species (of the genus propaganda). And the genus has far more member species than people typically appreciate.
I've recently started finding it a nice little conceptual tool to sort things out in my head,… And sometimes to make sense of where/why other people are getting things upside down.
Hard to disagree but difficult to accept. "The stench of public relations clings to everything" doesn't trigger the same cognitive dissonance. The reframing of propaganda as public relations was itself a great piece of propaganda
So propaganda is omnipresent yet undetectable and pretty much all social communication is propaganda and everyone is a propagandist? This type of excessively general definition simply robs the term of any objective content and is in stark contrast with what is understood under the term both in everyday usage and the technical literature (including Arendt).
There's a difference between (1) expanding a definition to encompass phenomena that don't share interesting properties and (2) presenting an argument that a given definition is in fact satisfied by a much wider range of phenomena than people realise.
« any attempt to shape an audience’s beliefs for purposes other than informing them of the truth.«
This definition founders first at informing and then at truth for me- not so much for the usual philosophical reasons, but because informing of facts involves choosing what facts to share. There is no informing that doesn’t involve choice- even if one is dancing, Wikipedia-like, between ´truths’ to less coarsely arrive at a notion. There is an implication in the definition that informing can (should?) be disabused of desire- that there is a (disembodied, eternal, disinterested) informing, when language’s very purpose is tied to the conveyance of desire by its nature as the movement of information between people.
But this is a nitpick. I am a big fan of ad hoc and disposable definitions to arrive somewhere- if they were used more, and clung to less, science would be much further along. One can usefully stop your definition after ‘beliefs’ to arrive at your points. And if one can tone down in one’s mind the vertigo of thus necessarily broadening much communication into kinds of propaganda, and ignore the sting of manipulation in the word itself, it helpfully broadens the field of play. What you have done for me is to make clearer and more urgent the quite general need to pay attention to our thoughts, and our reactions to our thoughts, the only tools we have to influence where we end up. Since that is in my opinion the most important work of humans, I am less concerned than Saul and Susan about what is and isn’t propaganda per se. I’m just grateful for the bit of guidebook, and for the rather frightening reminder of how ubiquitous propaganda is, how tough it is to avoid its effects.
But that is not what what you do in the article. You take a rather well defined term, give it a new much broader definition and then claim that this new more general definition covers a much wider range of phenomena...
One important thing about your definition is that even if a message is primarily aimed at achieving something other than the audience believing the truth, it may still be the best guide the audience has toward the truth. I like Grice’s account of conversations, where a conversation usually has some sort of cooperative purpose, and aiming at the truth is often one part of it, but rarely the primary part. Using the word “propaganda” makes it all seem a bit more sinister than it is.
If you take an introductory physics class because you want to start to get a better understanding of how and why objects move the way they do, the teacher will tell you Newton’s laws of motion, as a way to help you understand how and why objects move the way they do, even though these laws are false. Calling this “propaganda”, because they are interested in you gaining a skill, rather than knowledge of the truth, seems fine, as long as we understand just how broadly this word is being used.
Yes, I would want to exclude those kinds of cases. That’s too broad. When I first drafted this post, I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a good definition that would be immune from counter-examples of various kinds and then thought “fuck it” and just gestured vaguely at the kind of thing I meant and went from there to keep everything concise and more accessible. With hindsight, should have been a lot more precise.
Dan, the definition of propaganda seems significantly overbroad. Here are some questions that come to mind: Is a clearly labeled opinion piece propaganda? I would say no, as we know it is an opinion piece and are therefore enabled to take our own measure of it. Are legal arguments by a plaintiff or defendant that are based on fact and law propaganda, and would it help us to assess them if we decide that they are? I would say they are not, and that how to judge them is not helped by trying to figure out whether they are propaganda, but rather by directly assessing them on their merits. Are scientific studies that martial facts and evidence and which make conclusions based on those propaganda? We know that, in science, shoddy research and/or errant attempts to fit facts into a predetermined theory result in flawed conclusions. Is that evidence that we are dealing with propaganda, rather than science? I would say it doesn’t matter what we name it, the key is to address and correct the shoddy research and/or flawed conclusions through, eg, controls like peer-review.
All good points, Susan. For the opinion piece, it depends on whether the person writing the article is motivated to convince audiences of a viewpoint they think is true. If so, it's not propaganda. If, in contrast, their goal is something else - for example, to convince audiences to believe something the writer takes to be false - it would qualify as propaganda, yes. So, what matters is people's motivations. It's not just about whether one is communicating or advocating for a specific view.
Legal arguments are an interesting case. I think of the legal system as "staged propaganda": it's common knowledge that lawyers are motivated to argue for a predetermined conclusion (e.g., my client is innocent). We have simply decided that we are better at reaching the truth in such cases by incentivising advocacy on competing sides of a dispute. The science example is an interesting case. I think there is a lot more propaganda in science that many people realise.
Anyway, I agree that the definition of propaganda in the essay is very problematic (hence the qualification "very roughly"). What matters to the argument, I think, is simply the idea that much less of human communicated and belief formation is shaped by disinterested truth-seeking than many people are inclined to believe (at least when it comes to themselves).
Not really with you on this as a constructive line to pursue. Before determining what is or is not propaganda, it is essential to nail down the definition of propaganda, and I truly don’t think you have done that sufficiently either in the post or in your reply here. Instead, what I see is an effort to prove an argument that the stench of propaganda clings to everything by making sure that everything under discussion contains propaganda. Where I DO agree with you is that much less of human communication and belief formation is shaped by disinterested truth-seeking than many people believe. I just think your analysis of that has been, and would be here, much stronger if you ditched trying to use the propaganda frame. By my lights, this framing isn’t at all helpful; in contrast, I find it a barrier to discussion of your excellent, underlying point.
I am not convinced of the usefulness of your definition of propaganda. How do you define truth in this definition of propaganda? If you define it as objective truth, then since almost all our models of those objecive truth have some error, then no communication falls outside propaganda. If you define it as something the person believes is the truth then the internalized propaganda will no longer be propaganda
Yes it's about what they believe to be true. I agree this presents an issue for the idea of "internalised propaganda" - but I still think we can make sense of someone motivated to spread a message that they sincerely endorse for reasons distinct from the goal of merely informing audiences. Trivers' book 'Deceit and Self-Deception' provides the most in-depth treatment of how to make sense of this very psychologically complex phenomenon, but I'm much more convinced that the phenomenon exists than that I understand how the mind is organised to produce it.
Thank you for clarifying this. Then I have a similar concern about how purpose is defined. Is it defined as conscious goals or inferred non-consciuos motivators
Then again, since most non-trivial communications are usually motivated by several different evolved motivators, most non-trivial communications (even some trivial ones like "pass the salt") can be categorized as propaganda
FWW I think he must be right, and it applies to a lot more things than just blame. But like him, I am a disciple of Saint Bernard, so my judgement can’t be trusted.
Dear friend whose thoughts I appreciate immensely.
This seems to me a blunder of an excessively brilliant brain, bent to pursuing a clever thought ad absurdum.
It lacks clarity of purpose outside of a philosophy class, for it is not clear to the general public whether they should question your postulates and bring home the message that is it wise to be watchful of all things we take for granted, or something else.
The conflation of the two meanings of propaganda: the original one from the Catholic Church in the XVII century about "things to be propagated", aka evangelised, which held currency up to the XIX century; and the restricted modern one that intends it only negatively, as lies (however white) spread for a usually political purpose. This is extremely misleading.
Propaganda in the broad sense is not even in the main a matter of lies. It is a matter of persuasion. It is the old job of rhetoric.
Now the problem arises where persuasion uses lies, or refuses to see truth, to forward its goal. That is the modern, restrictive, meaning of the word and concept of propaganda.
But when you conflate the two and say they are the same, you do a disservice to clarity.
Except when employed in the service of brazen, conscious self-interest on behalf of a person or group, persuasion is not something necessarily negative (your entire essay points to that, starting with its "stenchy" title, even if maybe you did not fully intend so).
People will see as negative and damaging the propaganda of world-views we disapprove or disbelieve (see for example God -- not a lie for those who believe in its existence; Communism and Fascism fall in the same buckets, to those who embrace such tenets, they are valid, and the opposite abominable).
Some of us see - and this is to me the most reasonable position - as negative that propaganda that uses lies, or that refuses to acknowledge truth that stares it it the face for the sake of holding on to the familiar comfort of certainty.
So the revelation, in the end, is that propaganda is very seldom a matter of propaganda in its own... (the Protocols of Zion and the booklets that promote hygiene are both propaganda)... but rather of the ideas that are being propagated.
And of the capability of said ideas to accept, withstand and constructively answer discussion.
Otherwise, on the line you just drew, one ends in the dreary place opened by Heidegger and emptied by Derrida. Beyond which only lies despair for the good and free-for-all for the worst.
If you're talking about political propaganda, it can destroy the country, or countries, as it happened with the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries. The existence of the Soviet Union - 72 years, and the other countries - even less. The brains of propaganda, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, bought the people of Russia with the democratic, brilliant slogans: Land to the peasants, factories to the workers. Intelligentsia ran abroad, and those who stayed were killed or sent to the gulag. Soviet Propaganda ruined the people's brains; they became slaves and continue to be. Look at their war with their relative, Ukraine. Look at criminal Putin- a former communist and propagandist, continues to threaten the world.
I think the topic is a worthy one, though I agree with some other commentators that the always and everywhere theme is a bit unsatisfying. I've been thinking lately about the limits of propaganda and if there is not a political opening for an anti-propagandist. A staight-shooter, to borrow from McCain (with, I should add, David Foster Wallace's remarkable essay in mind). The question I guess is how would such a figure establish his anti-p credentials with voters? It seems that mayors and governors can succeed without surrendering their minds and personalities to interest groups and campaign strategists, but that the national stage overwhelms just about everyone.
I'm intrigued by the pushback on the definition here. It is broad, but that can be useful because it seems to be accurate. And perhaps this signals that some work should be done to more effectively categorize propaganda. Currently we tend to frame propaganda around the actor: state propaganda or industry propaganda, etc. It might be useful to better define the form and function of propaganda, beyond the actor or the media.
Nice piece! It sent me down the road of generating meaning vs generating propaganda and of course: it’s an analogous process but for the objective. You stipulate the distinction when you define the objective of propaganda as apposite to truth. Hmmm….well, truth……
In any case, thank you for this engaging epistemological autopsy, delivered as our culture crashes and burns around us, effectively exposing its own current meaning and mandating unrelenting resistance to propaganda as the only viable response.
I am unsure of the point of this essay. Everything involves some level of propaganda, and it is omnipresent. The essay would be more interesting to me if it could demonstrate instances of the absence of propaganda, if such a thing exists.
I share your view.
Nice piece, and a pleasure to read. If you wish to venture from the realm of clean and well ordered theory into the gnarly realm of applied social science, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on various prominent categories of propaganda. The first category—universal awareness—is where everyone knows that the information landscape is propaganda and adjusts their lives, habits, and cognitive patterns accordingly (e.g., postwar Russia). The second category—unaware immersion—is where most people are unaware of a given ambient background of propaganda (e.g., postwar America), which perhaps forces us to contemplate the differences between myth and propaganda. A third category—dueling populist polarization—emerges when oppositional populisms face off, with each side’s messaging accepted by its intended audience and labeled propaganda by opponents; this one forces us to meditate on the existence of truth. In re this third category It is worth noting the obvious impossibility of a perfectly symmetrical what-aboutist landscape in which both sides are magically and equally false; asymmetries in fact, evidence, and institutional power almost always give one side a greater share of the distortion. As a side salad, it would also be amusing to consider intentional propaganda—news that is unashamedly and blatantly biased as part of its brand identity. In the early days of the printing press, this form of propaganda prevailed, and it seems like now would be a great moment for scholars and historians to weigh the pros and cons of this older, more transparent model. Starting in the 1990s we saw a monopolar reemergence of this style of news reporting, and I have yet to encounter a well-posed thought-piece that uncovers potential insights about our current media landscape and the political lines it draws—dividing into self-aware bias on one hand, and blazing propaganda on the other. My hunch is that a thorough and honest analysis might reveal that, at this moment, the liberal cohort may be due for a healthy amount of critical self-reflection, and the conservatives may find that certain changes of tone could tilt things in their favor. For any young academic ready to absorb some slings and arrows from all directions, there ought to be a tenure argument hiding in these hostile but fertile marshes.
Great comment. Very interesting. Lots to think about
Excellent post. I always like reading philosophers because they excel at providing precise, accurate definitions and then follow through on them to all of the implications. This topic is normally very muddy so this effort is very much appreciated here.
I see a lot of pushback from readers re: the definition. I do think it would be possible to choose a much narrower definition, one where the power and interest of the government must be the driving force (e.g. Soviet Propaganda). This was not Bernays’ original meaning (he was in the PR game for companies, and is generally credited with popularizing the term). However, for many people it has come to mean something like this. I am just returning from a conference where a paper was presented on the new, “decentralized” form of Chinese state propaganda. Excellent paper, but I asked the author whether the uncoordinated behavior they document should really still be called “propaganda.” Not that it couldn’t be, but do we lose something when we broaden the term in this way.
But in a way, this is putting the semantics over the phenomenon. @Dan Williams could have called this “manipulative-speech” — defined it exactly the same way, with exactly the same implications. Then we couldn’t object to the term, but would have to wrestle with the conclusions for what they say—that we engage in it without realizing it, that our own minds are polluted by it etc. Or, in other words, that what Donald Trump does is, at least, plausibly what we all do unless we can figure out some place to draw a line, or some variable that gives us a matter of degree. Which is terrible to think.
The other objection I see is that defining propaganda as “not true” seems to reify and objective truth that we “now know” has been debunked. I have a way to address this but it will require more than a comment.
To the haters: what Dan is showing is that whilst political propaganda is usually taken as a genus, it is in fact a species (of the genus propaganda). And the genus has far more member species than people typically appreciate.
Yes nice way of putting it.
I've recently started finding it a nice little conceptual tool to sort things out in my head,… And sometimes to make sense of where/why other people are getting things upside down.
Hard to disagree but difficult to accept. "The stench of public relations clings to everything" doesn't trigger the same cognitive dissonance. The reframing of propaganda as public relations was itself a great piece of propaganda
So propaganda is omnipresent yet undetectable and pretty much all social communication is propaganda and everyone is a propagandist? This type of excessively general definition simply robs the term of any objective content and is in stark contrast with what is understood under the term both in everyday usage and the technical literature (including Arendt).
There's a difference between (1) expanding a definition to encompass phenomena that don't share interesting properties and (2) presenting an argument that a given definition is in fact satisfied by a much wider range of phenomena than people realise.
« any attempt to shape an audience’s beliefs for purposes other than informing them of the truth.«
This definition founders first at informing and then at truth for me- not so much for the usual philosophical reasons, but because informing of facts involves choosing what facts to share. There is no informing that doesn’t involve choice- even if one is dancing, Wikipedia-like, between ´truths’ to less coarsely arrive at a notion. There is an implication in the definition that informing can (should?) be disabused of desire- that there is a (disembodied, eternal, disinterested) informing, when language’s very purpose is tied to the conveyance of desire by its nature as the movement of information between people.
But this is a nitpick. I am a big fan of ad hoc and disposable definitions to arrive somewhere- if they were used more, and clung to less, science would be much further along. One can usefully stop your definition after ‘beliefs’ to arrive at your points. And if one can tone down in one’s mind the vertigo of thus necessarily broadening much communication into kinds of propaganda, and ignore the sting of manipulation in the word itself, it helpfully broadens the field of play. What you have done for me is to make clearer and more urgent the quite general need to pay attention to our thoughts, and our reactions to our thoughts, the only tools we have to influence where we end up. Since that is in my opinion the most important work of humans, I am less concerned than Saul and Susan about what is and isn’t propaganda per se. I’m just grateful for the bit of guidebook, and for the rather frightening reminder of how ubiquitous propaganda is, how tough it is to avoid its effects.
Thanks - great comment 🙏
But that is not what what you do in the article. You take a rather well defined term, give it a new much broader definition and then claim that this new more general definition covers a much wider range of phenomena...
I agree with this.
One important thing about your definition is that even if a message is primarily aimed at achieving something other than the audience believing the truth, it may still be the best guide the audience has toward the truth. I like Grice’s account of conversations, where a conversation usually has some sort of cooperative purpose, and aiming at the truth is often one part of it, but rarely the primary part. Using the word “propaganda” makes it all seem a bit more sinister than it is.
If you take an introductory physics class because you want to start to get a better understanding of how and why objects move the way they do, the teacher will tell you Newton’s laws of motion, as a way to help you understand how and why objects move the way they do, even though these laws are false. Calling this “propaganda”, because they are interested in you gaining a skill, rather than knowledge of the truth, seems fine, as long as we understand just how broadly this word is being used.
Yes, I would want to exclude those kinds of cases. That’s too broad. When I first drafted this post, I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a good definition that would be immune from counter-examples of various kinds and then thought “fuck it” and just gestured vaguely at the kind of thing I meant and went from there to keep everything concise and more accessible. With hindsight, should have been a lot more precise.
I appreciate the inside scoop!
Dan, the definition of propaganda seems significantly overbroad. Here are some questions that come to mind: Is a clearly labeled opinion piece propaganda? I would say no, as we know it is an opinion piece and are therefore enabled to take our own measure of it. Are legal arguments by a plaintiff or defendant that are based on fact and law propaganda, and would it help us to assess them if we decide that they are? I would say they are not, and that how to judge them is not helped by trying to figure out whether they are propaganda, but rather by directly assessing them on their merits. Are scientific studies that martial facts and evidence and which make conclusions based on those propaganda? We know that, in science, shoddy research and/or errant attempts to fit facts into a predetermined theory result in flawed conclusions. Is that evidence that we are dealing with propaganda, rather than science? I would say it doesn’t matter what we name it, the key is to address and correct the shoddy research and/or flawed conclusions through, eg, controls like peer-review.
All good points, Susan. For the opinion piece, it depends on whether the person writing the article is motivated to convince audiences of a viewpoint they think is true. If so, it's not propaganda. If, in contrast, their goal is something else - for example, to convince audiences to believe something the writer takes to be false - it would qualify as propaganda, yes. So, what matters is people's motivations. It's not just about whether one is communicating or advocating for a specific view.
Legal arguments are an interesting case. I think of the legal system as "staged propaganda": it's common knowledge that lawyers are motivated to argue for a predetermined conclusion (e.g., my client is innocent). We have simply decided that we are better at reaching the truth in such cases by incentivising advocacy on competing sides of a dispute. The science example is an interesting case. I think there is a lot more propaganda in science that many people realise.
Anyway, I agree that the definition of propaganda in the essay is very problematic (hence the qualification "very roughly"). What matters to the argument, I think, is simply the idea that much less of human communicated and belief formation is shaped by disinterested truth-seeking than many people are inclined to believe (at least when it comes to themselves).
Thanks for the very helpful comment, as always.
Not really with you on this as a constructive line to pursue. Before determining what is or is not propaganda, it is essential to nail down the definition of propaganda, and I truly don’t think you have done that sufficiently either in the post or in your reply here. Instead, what I see is an effort to prove an argument that the stench of propaganda clings to everything by making sure that everything under discussion contains propaganda. Where I DO agree with you is that much less of human communication and belief formation is shaped by disinterested truth-seeking than many people believe. I just think your analysis of that has been, and would be here, much stronger if you ditched trying to use the propaganda frame. By my lights, this framing isn’t at all helpful; in contrast, I find it a barrier to discussion of your excellent, underlying point.
Thanks. Maybe you're right! I'll have a think
But of course I could be wildly wrong, too:)!
I am not convinced of the usefulness of your definition of propaganda. How do you define truth in this definition of propaganda? If you define it as objective truth, then since almost all our models of those objecive truth have some error, then no communication falls outside propaganda. If you define it as something the person believes is the truth then the internalized propaganda will no longer be propaganda
Yes it's about what they believe to be true. I agree this presents an issue for the idea of "internalised propaganda" - but I still think we can make sense of someone motivated to spread a message that they sincerely endorse for reasons distinct from the goal of merely informing audiences. Trivers' book 'Deceit and Self-Deception' provides the most in-depth treatment of how to make sense of this very psychologically complex phenomenon, but I'm much more convinced that the phenomenon exists than that I understand how the mind is organised to produce it.
Thank you for clarifying this. Then I have a similar concern about how purpose is defined. Is it defined as conscious goals or inferred non-consciuos motivators
Latter
Then again, since most non-trivial communications are usually motivated by several different evolved motivators, most non-trivial communications (even some trivial ones like "pass the salt") can be categorized as propaganda
Do you know Matthieu Queloz’s work on self-effacing functionality? Directly relevant to some of your points here. Grist to your mill.
I know his work a bit but not that specific concept. Thanks - I'll check it out
It is scattered around in his stuff about genealogy, but the paper on the self effacing functionality of blame is probably the easiest place to go.
FWW I think he must be right, and it applies to a lot more things than just blame. But like him, I am a disciple of Saint Bernard, so my judgement can’t be trusted.
Aren’t you talking about what the ancients called “rhetoric”, the art of persuasion?
Dear friend whose thoughts I appreciate immensely.
This seems to me a blunder of an excessively brilliant brain, bent to pursuing a clever thought ad absurdum.
It lacks clarity of purpose outside of a philosophy class, for it is not clear to the general public whether they should question your postulates and bring home the message that is it wise to be watchful of all things we take for granted, or something else.
The conflation of the two meanings of propaganda: the original one from the Catholic Church in the XVII century about "things to be propagated", aka evangelised, which held currency up to the XIX century; and the restricted modern one that intends it only negatively, as lies (however white) spread for a usually political purpose. This is extremely misleading.
Propaganda in the broad sense is not even in the main a matter of lies. It is a matter of persuasion. It is the old job of rhetoric.
Now the problem arises where persuasion uses lies, or refuses to see truth, to forward its goal. That is the modern, restrictive, meaning of the word and concept of propaganda.
But when you conflate the two and say they are the same, you do a disservice to clarity.
Except when employed in the service of brazen, conscious self-interest on behalf of a person or group, persuasion is not something necessarily negative (your entire essay points to that, starting with its "stenchy" title, even if maybe you did not fully intend so).
People will see as negative and damaging the propaganda of world-views we disapprove or disbelieve (see for example God -- not a lie for those who believe in its existence; Communism and Fascism fall in the same buckets, to those who embrace such tenets, they are valid, and the opposite abominable).
Some of us see - and this is to me the most reasonable position - as negative that propaganda that uses lies, or that refuses to acknowledge truth that stares it it the face for the sake of holding on to the familiar comfort of certainty.
So the revelation, in the end, is that propaganda is very seldom a matter of propaganda in its own... (the Protocols of Zion and the booklets that promote hygiene are both propaganda)... but rather of the ideas that are being propagated.
And of the capability of said ideas to accept, withstand and constructively answer discussion.
Otherwise, on the line you just drew, one ends in the dreary place opened by Heidegger and emptied by Derrida. Beyond which only lies despair for the good and free-for-all for the worst.
If you're talking about political propaganda, it can destroy the country, or countries, as it happened with the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries. The existence of the Soviet Union - 72 years, and the other countries - even less. The brains of propaganda, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, bought the people of Russia with the democratic, brilliant slogans: Land to the peasants, factories to the workers. Intelligentsia ran abroad, and those who stayed were killed or sent to the gulag. Soviet Propaganda ruined the people's brains; they became slaves and continue to be. Look at their war with their relative, Ukraine. Look at criminal Putin- a former communist and propagandist, continues to threaten the world.
I think the topic is a worthy one, though I agree with some other commentators that the always and everywhere theme is a bit unsatisfying. I've been thinking lately about the limits of propaganda and if there is not a political opening for an anti-propagandist. A staight-shooter, to borrow from McCain (with, I should add, David Foster Wallace's remarkable essay in mind). The question I guess is how would such a figure establish his anti-p credentials with voters? It seems that mayors and governors can succeed without surrendering their minds and personalities to interest groups and campaign strategists, but that the national stage overwhelms just about everyone.
I'm intrigued by the pushback on the definition here. It is broad, but that can be useful because it seems to be accurate. And perhaps this signals that some work should be done to more effectively categorize propaganda. Currently we tend to frame propaganda around the actor: state propaganda or industry propaganda, etc. It might be useful to better define the form and function of propaganda, beyond the actor or the media.
Nice piece! It sent me down the road of generating meaning vs generating propaganda and of course: it’s an analogous process but for the objective. You stipulate the distinction when you define the objective of propaganda as apposite to truth. Hmmm….well, truth……
In any case, thank you for this engaging epistemological autopsy, delivered as our culture crashes and burns around us, effectively exposing its own current meaning and mandating unrelenting resistance to propaganda as the only viable response.