Here is a question my instructor has raised in my Propaganda class. “What is the difference, if any, between propaganda and science? What is the difference, if any between proaganda and education?”
Now is the time for all good men to come the the aid of their gazorninplatt.
What’s the difference between Joseph Goebbles and Stephen Hawking? What’s the difference between the John Birch Society and Jaime Escalante? Propaganda has the intent to shape the truth. The intent of Science and Education should be merely to unbiasly seek out and teach the truth. Scientists and educators are indispensable to the propagandist’s trade. The reverse is not.
it’s their goals that define them,
as the bible says, ye shall know them by their fruits. Consider who stands to gain if people accept this, believe that, or learn the other.
You might want to read up a bit on National Geographic’s recent embarassment over the supposed “missing link” between dinosaurs and birds. I just read an article in USA Today about it.
It seems to me that many of the “scientists” that are involved in the debate over whether birds evolved directly from dinosaurs are forgetting science and delving into propaganda. National Geographic kept the fossil in question from scientific examination until it had published its article about it. When it was revealed to be a fraud, the scientist that don’t think birds came from dinosaurs started using this and one other example to promote their belief. Neither side is really being open-minded about it.
Mr. K’s Link of the Month:
What is John Kricfalusi (“Ren and Stimpy”) doing these days?
Science is a question, propaganda is an answer.
What people call science and what science really is aren’t always the same thing. You can hold up lots of things to show how “science” was mistaken, but, by definition, those things aren’t really science.
The same people may use them, but that doesn’t make them the same. Propaganda is an attempt to get many people to think the same thing on a subject. Science is a technique for thinking. Education is training in the practice of thought.
Let me attempt a lame analogy. Car dealerships, auto factories and auto repair shops are not the same. They all deal with cars, but one serves them up prepackaged, one creates them, and the last allows skilled people to modify them. I leave it to you to decide which item in the analogy coresponds to which part of the discussion.
Well, here’s a round-about explanation:
Science asks, “What are the necessary and sufficient conditions which define science, education and propaganda.”
Education asks, “Define each of the following terms and use it in a sentence: 1) Science 2) Education 3) Propaganda”
Propaganda asks, “What is the difference, if any, between propaganda and science? What is the difference, if any between proaganda and education?”
Just for fun, note that “propaganda” actually means “information to be disseminated”. It’s only an accident of recent history that has given it a negative connotation.
Note, too, that only an idiot compares “science” and “propaganda” at all. He obviously defines “science” as “that which is taught in science class”.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
I assume your instructor is doing this to make you think, and is not just an incredible idiot.
As someone who has studied the discipline of public relations (yes, we like to think there’s an actual structure and ground rules to it) we study propaganda all the time. here’s a working definition:
Propaganda employs the selective use of facts, opinions and claims to shape an opinion.
Now, we have “good” propaganda and “bad” propaganda. Good propaganda only uses things that we can verify, like facts, and well-constructed opinions. Bad propaganda mixes lies and the truth, engages in irrational and ad hominem arguements to convince you.
So what’s the difference between propaganda, science and education? Simple, propaganda’s job is over once you believe what we want you to believe. Propaganda also ignores any facts or evidence that don’t fit in to the desired point of view. It’s been awhile since I’ve been in college, but neither science nor education has that as a goal.
In an ideal world science discovers truth and is apolitical, and education teaches that truth and is apolitical. Propaganda is a political tool used by interest groups to persuade others of a particular agenda (as has been said). In the real world, both science and education partake of propaganda, because in the real world real, fallible, human people do the work. Show me a scientist who has never played politics or tried to persuade others in order to get funding or gain support, or a high school history text that doesn’t have any political bias, and I’ll show you…well, something else I don’t think exists. Maybe that’s the profs point.
I recently read a book called Art and Propaganda. (Believe it or not, it was on my Christmas list.) They had one example I think is instructive, even though it’s about art, rather than science. (Given that both disciplines are about attaining truth, despite the divergent methods, I think the example is worth consideration.) The point was that art in the 1930’s and 1940’s had become strongly politicized, what with the constructivist movements in the USSR and all the “go to war!” posters being displayed in the US, Europe, and elsewhere. As a partial consequence, in the 1950’s, many artists in the West gravitated toward abstract expressionism and minimalism, as “pure” forms devoid of political content. Almost immediately, though, several right-wing hawks began using the very same non-representational artwork for political ends, specifically by pointing to the artists’ freedom in producing said work and comparing it to the rigid structuralism and officially sanctioned themes behind the Iron Curtain. In other words, it seems obvious that the difference between propaganda (in the modern connotation) and art or science has less to do with the intent of the original producer and more to do with the context of its dissemination. Or to put it another way, science is science (or art is art) only until it’s done, and then the resulting work is available to be applied propagandistically by a second or third party, and, almost inevitably, will be. Does this make sense to anyone other than me? 