Hi,
Why do you think things like the civil rights movement, or the women's movement have made progress? Because people have changed? Not much chance of that in a half century. Because they represent the 'right' thing to do? Then why didn't they occur eons ago -- they were just as right in classical Greece and in the anti-bellum south. What caused people to change, to embrace these 'new' ideas? Do you think it was laws? Or could it have been the propaganda in literature, in music, on TV, in the movies that reinforced the new attitudes and broke down the old.
Waterhole Number 3 was a hilarious movie when I first saw it and found nothing objectionable about it. I now find its attitude about rape to be offensive. Did it change, or have I changed? And if I've changed, why? The laws haven't changed. Song of the South was a wonderful animated musical. It hasn't changed, but it no longer is acceptable. Why?
Propaganda isn't just billboards and bullhorns. It's the look on Detective Stabler's face when a legal but socially unacceptable action takes place. It's These Boots Are Made for Walking replacing Right or Wrong. It's The Times, They Are a' Changing instead of The Ballad of the MTA.
Don't underestimate it. When we agree or disagree, it is often because of the propaganda we've each been exposed to and the degree to which it took or failed to take. And the journey to self awareness is an excavation through that propaganda, to see what of that we believe we truly believe and what we just accept.
So, yes, TV and billboards and political hacks with bullhorns might fail. But a catchy tune, a funny story, a well told joke all have their influence. Avalanches, I'm told, are started with a single rock.
--Pete
Quote:These are places where modern media has yet to make any kind of inroads. The things that determine the social milieu, in a family planning sense, aren't TV or radio, or whatever, it's women's social networks. If you can get to and convince that peer group, you succeed. If you can't, you can put up all the billboards and whatnot that you like, but they will be largely ignored.Right, the medium must reach the audience. That's a given. So TV ads are out. But radio reaches many more, as does the written word, as do songs and slogans. Chivalry was spread by the troubadours in a society not much more advanced, if at all, than the third world is now. Again, you seem to think that propaganda needs to be a dull ax. Well done, it is a fine scalpel which does its job unnoticed by the patient, leaving nearly invisible scars of change behind.
Why do you think things like the civil rights movement, or the women's movement have made progress? Because people have changed? Not much chance of that in a half century. Because they represent the 'right' thing to do? Then why didn't they occur eons ago -- they were just as right in classical Greece and in the anti-bellum south. What caused people to change, to embrace these 'new' ideas? Do you think it was laws? Or could it have been the propaganda in literature, in music, on TV, in the movies that reinforced the new attitudes and broke down the old.
Waterhole Number 3 was a hilarious movie when I first saw it and found nothing objectionable about it. I now find its attitude about rape to be offensive. Did it change, or have I changed? And if I've changed, why? The laws haven't changed. Song of the South was a wonderful animated musical. It hasn't changed, but it no longer is acceptable. Why?
Propaganda isn't just billboards and bullhorns. It's the look on Detective Stabler's face when a legal but socially unacceptable action takes place. It's These Boots Are Made for Walking replacing Right or Wrong. It's The Times, They Are a' Changing instead of The Ballad of the MTA.
Don't underestimate it. When we agree or disagree, it is often because of the propaganda we've each been exposed to and the degree to which it took or failed to take. And the journey to self awareness is an excavation through that propaganda, to see what of that we believe we truly believe and what we just accept.
So, yes, TV and billboards and political hacks with bullhorns might fail. But a catchy tune, a funny story, a well told joke all have their influence. Avalanches, I'm told, are started with a single rock.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?