The Tools of Integrated Apologetics course 1.6.3
Analysis Of Propaganda Techniques
Dr. Johnson C. Philip, Dr. Saneesh Cherian
Chapter — 3
Combinations Of Their Techniques
The simple techniques mentioned in the previous chapter can be combined with one another and also with some other methods to result in things highly harmful to the recipient. It would be good to look at some of them.Propaganda Combined With Mind Manipulation (Seduction) Techniques Our mind is the ultimate source of all our behaviour. We shall analyse soul, spirit, the old sin nature, etc. here. Nor shall we try to examine their precise nature. Rather, we shall use the word "Mind" to represent the centre of human thinking. Further, we shall remember that the human mind is not a simple entity isolated from other factors. Rather, the mind is a complex entity that is inseparably linked with our human soul and spirit. The sin nature constantly interacts with it. Also: memory, intelligence, curiosity and many other factors are so intimately interwoven with it that what affects one factor affects them all.
This means that if persons can break into the human mind, they can successfully manipulate the whole person. Since all mental faculties are closely interwoven, one can break into human minds through anyone of them. Thus it is clearly a battle of wits. The secular world has very clearly recognized that it needs to control minds in order to control people, and it has invented and perfected many techniques. Many of these techniques are subtle because people do not recognize them as mind-altering forces, and powerful because they have not been seen to fail. One of these is mind-alteration by repeated exposure. The other is emotional manipulation by bypassing reason.
1. Mind Manipulation By Repeated Exposure To Propaganda: The human mind has a built-in resistance (or, at least a built-in hesitation) to doing things that are generally shocking or repulsive. In fact, the human brain has an inhibition-centre that inhibits people from indulgence in shameful activities. Alcohol and many other chemicals can suppress the activity of this centre, and this is the reason why otherwise self-controlled persons become uninhibited after taking in a certain dosage of these chemicals. Once the restraint is gone, they become abusive, foul and even vulgar. But mind-alteration techniques are far more powerful because they have long-lasting effects. Once the human liver has burned up alcohol, the person returns to normal. But there is no corresponding recovery of the human mind after it has fallen into degenerate activities. This is because, once the mind has degenerated, it effectively blocks the spiritual processes that could restore that person.
One way of defeating the built-in mental resistance and abhorrence to wrong activities is through repeated exposure. Repeated exposure alters human minds somewhat as follows:
First exposure —> Shock and recoil- ->Repeated exposure —> Reduction of shock –> Permitting further exposure—-> Desensitization –> Complete elimination of shock —-> Tolerance (because shock is gone) —> Condoning —> Endorsing —> Desiring —> Longing –> Doing it !!
It is a long chain, but once the first two or three steps have been taken, the rest of the process automatically speeds up. The old sin nature is given an opportunity to raise its ugly head, and once it gains the upper hand the degeneration is fast.
Repeated exposure is one way in which advertisements invade minds, new and sinful behaviour patterns are popularized, sins made desirable, and the abnormal accepted as normal. This is a chain reaction, so that once it is set in motion it becomes almost irreversible and ever-increasing in its deadly and destructive power.
Once a person is occupied with, and derives pleasure from, the abnormal and the sinful, the initial thrill and charm gradually decreases. These persons then need ever- increasing levels of deviation to satisfy their lust for the deviant behaviour. This is one reason why the depiction of crime and sex keep increasing in intensity in TV, cinema and the other media. This is how a sane society eventually starts endorsing things insane.
2. Mind Manipulation By Bypassing Reason: Whenever people are given a piece of information, they analyze it before taking any action. This the way things should go:
Information —> Reason —> Analysis —> Action
Here ‘action’ implies the action of acceptance or rejection. But in real-life decisions another factor also enters the picture, and it is called emotion. Emotions have a legitimate function, but they can be manipulated in such a way that they take over reason. The way emotions have been designed, they are supposed to play a supportive role to reason. They heighten joy in good situations, bring out sympathy on seeing others in pain and intensify anger, hatred, excitement and patriotism, etc.,, as the situation demands. In these matters the emotions function as a strong accessory to reason. Just as proper tools make tasks easy, properly controlled emotions make life exciting by providing variation.
All is well as long as emotions remain subordinate to reason and both reason and emotions play their roles properly, adding to stability in our lives. However, if the emotions spin out of control then neither they nor our reason is able to function properly and the result is utter chaos as seen in the life of emotional wrecks. Unfortunately the reason/emotion roles can be manipulated and reversed even in normal persons. That is exactly what we see in most reason-bypassing advertisements.
Using the techniques of propaganda mentioned above it is possible to bypass reason and touch emotions. In fact emotion-manipulation and propaganda techniques are so inseparably inter-linked with each other that one can not be understood without the other. Such techniques work somewhat as shown in the line diagram:
Contrived Information –> Emotion-dominated Reasoning –>Emotion-dominated Analysis –> Emotion-controlled Action
Objective and emotion-free reason is bypassed and eventually isolated, but emotion is manipulated. This is achieved by using tricky and loaded words that bypass reason and directly manipulate emotions. Most propaganda related to population-control falls into this category. Using the fear of the unknown, propagandists paint a horrifying future picture of humans wiggling all over the globe like worms. Many, other catchwords and phrases like, "Why have children if you can not give them security?" and "The more the children the more the interference with your career or ambitions" also belong to this category.
Once emotion has successfully been directly manipulated, reason is eclipsed. There is near-total mental black out on that particular issue, and that person will obediently follow the propagandist. Men, women, teenagers and children all have specific areas of emotional vulnerability. These areas are well understood by psychologists. Propagandists always seek this information out while the average person remains in ignorant bliss about it all.
Some of the areas of vulnerability are as follows: Most men are worried and harbor secret fears about their looks, abilities, achievements, authority and the respect they command at home and abroad. Married men are closely watched by their mates, many of whom are quick to express their disapproval at the slightest and most inconsequent issue.
Consequently a good number of men are worried to death at their personal performance — performance ranging from their sexual life to their social status. Thus many propagandists touch this nerve directly and have the job done. One can pick up any common social magazine and discover dozens of ads that play upon this theme. For example, a magazine that I picked up randomly describes men as "caring, loving, thoughtful, envied by others, in style, and in a class by themselves, etc.". And what exactly elevates them to this status? The answer is very simple (and stupid): these men own the products advertised by these companies!
Women are vulnerable in areas of beauty, looks, things owned, the opinion of others about their household, cooking, and current fashions/trends. Since none of these things have permanence, it’s a life-long battle for women to maintain these things. That is why ads aimed at women manipulate them in these matters. A popular hair-oil claims its users have "a look so smart, so new, your confidence comes shining through". It does not explain that looks, confidence, etc., depend upon numerous external as well as plenty of INTERNAL factors that no hair-oil, dress, perfume or gadget can supply. Another ad says about using a lipstick that by it "I enchanted my man, for ever". Now, which woman does not want to enchant her man - and for ever? However, the ad fails to tell that enchanting is a never-ending process on which she will have to work all her life. Further, it fails to say that if this company’s lipstick is so enchanting then any other women using the same product also stands the chance of enchanting him! Not a very pleasant prospect for any woman!
Young men and women have their own special areas of susceptibility and fear. Since they have not yet reached the mental or emotional stability of their parents, it is very easy to manipulate them. As I write this, an arbitrarily picked up social magazine is lying in front of me. One manipulative advertisement aimed at young men uses words like macho, toughies, ruggedness, sensuous, suave, bold, etc. The same magazine has plenty of ads directed at young women. These use words like beauty, splendor, pretty woman, style, enticing, etc. Another, targeting the young house-wife, says about their spices that this is "what keeps great families together". All the above ads touch the most tender human emotions, but all of them hide the fact that handsomeness or beauty is never for sale. They do not reveal that these desirable characteristics need a great deal of nurturing.
Finally if, as the last ad quoted above says, spices could keep families together then human society would have been in much better shape today. The Bad-name Techniques (Additional Comments On Emotional Manipulation Using This Nasty Technique) Loaded words are used in many ways to create the bad-name effect. One method is to pick up something that is really bad or offensive and, using a little bit of free association, turn it to implicate something else. Galileo Galileo was forced to recant his views, primarily because of his political activities. This was mainly a sociological phenomena but since the Church was the agent which executed it all, propagandists are quick to use the free association technique: Galileo –> questioned by the Church –> sciences –> opposition by Church. Finally they say: "The Church is always against science". A careful investigation will expose the baseless connection between the original event and the implications publicized these days.
Another method is to manipulate and redefine language in a way that makes good and desirable things look offensive. Words like discipline, self-control, temperance, abstinence, etc. have undergone this process. Each of these words has been twinned with certain carefully-selected offensive incidents or word pictures to impart a bad taste to these words — a meaning which is not objectively present in the actual usage. After this, whenever this word is used by a clever person, the implied bad meaning automatically comes to the listeners’ mind.
Censorship is another method. It is an act of suppression carried out from a position of power, sometimes for the common good (such as in a case that involves national security), but often out of fear of exposure to other ideas or out of plain self interest. Censors who are acting merely to defend their viewpoints suppress all information that is favourable to the other side. At the same time, they encourage the spread of all information that cause a bad name or disadvantage to the other side. There is no scarcity of people who would like to use Archeology, Physics, Chemistry, Social sciences or the evolution model to attack the Christian faith. They pile up evidence after evidence that seems to refute the Christian faith, but fail consistently to present the other side. As a consequence, readers see only that side of the picture that holds nothing desirable and therefore they avoid association with that subject or person.
Recently, when I was lecturing on the Bible and Science, some of my listeners pointed out this kind of censoring. Their Zoology textbook attacks the reliability of the Bible by saying that according to Moses (Leviticus 11:4-6 and Deuteronomy 14:7) rabbits chew the cud, but that this false. The aim of this statement is to show that the Bible is unreliable in matters related to Zoology. Once this bad name is there, very few people will venture to associate their name with Bible. Most people do not know that Christian Scientists have thoroughly researched this reference. They have identified the animal, and have pointed out that the confusion is due to a faulty translation. This information is widely available in Bible dictionaries and handbooks, but none of the attackers seem to be interested in acknowledging this information.
Further, there are hundreds of instances where the information given in the Bible is 100% percent accurate, and was recorded thousands of years before scientists actually discovered these things. Secular books (that would like to attack the Bible) find it only convenient to omit this information. Clearly these people are not interested in presenting the other side even though it is significant to get the whole picture about the Bible. This is censorship, and the result is a bad reputation for the Bible.
Propaganda Techniques And The Theological Radicals
The rise of the so-called liberals among Christians is a living testimony to the power of propaganda. The name "liberal" itself is an advertisement trick. Actually a liberal is a person who tolerates all points of view. But, on the contrary, these people who label themselves as "liberal" Christians are not willing to listen to, or tolerate, any other viewpoint. Such people should properly be labeled "radicals". But since this name immediately betrays their identity, and since it clearly reveals their theological non-accommodation and narrow-mindedness, they propagate the nice-sounding word "liberal" for themselves. This is the power of propaganda.
The radicals have been able to gain footholds in a wide range of churches and institutions by using propaganda techniques. If you count the magazines and other mass-media outlets among Christians, you will discover that a good proportion of them are controlled by radicals. They know the power of propaganda and they exploit all the available communication channels to spread their viewpoints.
The more aspiring students of apologetics are encouraged to pick up and critically read any radical magazine or writer. They will observe that many of them use nothing except propaganda techniques to attack the Bible. Their writings have no solid evidence or logic to back their claims. Two notable examples come to my mind. The first is a "Christian" journal now titled "Verdict". It started as an almost fundamentalist (conservative evangelical) publication but eventually turned into a heretical publication. Any article picked up from this periodical illustrates the above contention. Another example is the great writer/teacher Bernard Ramm. He started as an evangelical scholar but ended up, in the last decades of his life, a near heretic. His supposedly evangelical book "The Christian view of science and scripture" demonstrates powerful usage of propaganda techniques to attack Bible-believing Christians. His latter books openly deviated from the word of God, and any of them will illustrate the contention that propaganda methods are used by radicals to turn people away from their faith in the Bible.
Both the journal as well as the books mentioned above use some very nasty words, phrases, and implications against God’s people, yet these enjoy wide distribution. What more demonstration does anyone need to understand the power of propaganda to attack the Christian faith?
Analysis Of Propaganda Techniques
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