This week, we're thinking about Propaganda – how it works, why it matters. I feel about propaganda sort of the way I feel about pornography -- I’m not exactly sure how to define it, but I definitely know it when I see it. Turn to any good dictionary and you will find a definition of propaganda. Here is how the Merriam Webster online dictionary defines it. “Propaganda -- ideas that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.” But this strikes me as a pretty lousy definition. First, not every false or exaggerated statement is propaganda. If I were to exaggerate for effect – something, by the way, I would absolutely NEVER do, not in a million years – that wouldn’t make my statement propaganda. Would it? Thus I refute Merriam Webster.

这个定义有一点是正确的，那就是宣传性的声明“经常”是错误的或误导的。但同样重要的是要看到，宣传言论有时是正确的。事实上，我怀疑，当宣传是真实的，或者至少包含了真相的核心时，宣传可能会更有效。举个例子，假设一位政治家在一次集会上用一种阴郁而不祥的语气说:“我们中间有穆斯林!”说的可能是真的。但他的语气和上下文的结合，让他的声明有一种宣传的感觉，至少在我听来是这样。

There’s a lot going on in that little utterance, but it’s a little hard to isolate exactly what makes statement propagandistic. Start with the fact that what he is most obviously doing is making a statement – perhaps true, perhaps false -- about Muslims. Clearly not every statement about Muslims is a bit of propaganda. But, someone might say, he isn’t just making a statement. He’s also doing something else in making that statement – he’s expressing his fear and disapproval of Muslims. This seems to be getting us closer to isolating what’s propagandistic in his utterance. But we still haven’t hit the target. After all, certainly not every statement that expresses fear or disapproval counts as propaganda. A monster is climbing through the window. I express my fear and disapproval of the monster by running and screaming. I am not for that reason speaking propagandistically.

Ah, but, there’s a difference, you might think, between our politician and me running and screaming. There’s a manipulative element to the politician’s speech that missing in my spontaneous screaming. The politician is trying to manipulate his audience. He’s trying to get his audience to share his fears and prejudices. But we have to be careful. It’s not the mere fact that he’s trying to induce certain attitudes and emotions into his audience that marks the politician’s utterance as propaganda. That is, after all, something that we all do all the time – not just politicians but poet and priests too. Even ordinary people do it. We all use language to induce attitudes and feelings in others. That’s one the things language is designed to enable us to do.

我认为，政治家的言论之所以具有宣传意义，是因为它试图以一种特别阴险和隐秘的方式，诱导听众的态度和情感。当诗人和牧师以激发情感和态度的方式谈话或写作时，他们对自己所做的事情大多是坦率的。宣传则更加阴险，更加间接。但是，宣传往往根本不会提前说明自己在做什么。它经常标榜自己是一件事，而做的完全是另一件事。它假装只是在陈述冷酷无情的事实——我们当中也有穆斯林——而实际上它试图偷偷操纵我们的思想和情绪——害怕他们，回避他们。

我承认，并非所有的宣传都是以这种方式间接进行的。所以我并没有把它作为定义。例如，想想纳粹的宣传。这不是什么非常隐蔽或间接的事!这是因为当国家保留了强迫你相信的权利时，如果你不愿意，宣传就不必是微妙和阴险的。它可以更坦率，更直接地面对你。我认为，这就是人们普遍认为宣传常常是错误的来源。有这种想法的人是在思考威权支持下的宣传。在一个威权国家，官方宣传往往充满谎言——有时甚至是没有理性的人能够真诚地接受或相信的明显谎言。但由于它有国家的铁腕支持，没有人质疑它——至少没有公开质疑。

Of course, you can’t get away with that sort of thing in a free and open society. And that might lead you to think that propaganda can’t thrive because it can’t “propagate” where information flows freely and opinion is un-coerced. Free thought as the antidote to propaganda!

不幸的是，事情并没有那么简单。想想福克斯新闻——“公平和平衡。”“我们报告。你决定。”这真的是一个非常出色的作品，更不用说它是一个非常有利可图的纯宣传作品。福克斯每天都有数百万热切的听众收听。现在，如果你反对福克斯，你会认为这是因为每时每刻都有傻瓜出生，而如果你支持福克斯，你会认为这是一件好事。但我真的不想关注那些收看节目的人，我想关注的是福克斯让他们收看谁的节目。福克斯代表着每一个独立的新组织真正应该成为的形象——愿意考虑辩论的所有方面，没有党派议程，无论结果如何都坚持不懈地寻求真相，是解决片面、有偏见报道的解药。但不管你喜欢还是讨厌福克斯，你都很难否认，在现实中，他们在各个方面都与福克斯截然相反。客观地说，他们实际上是一个非常具有党派色彩的网络。 But that’s not how their most avid listeners think of them, I don’t think. They don't think they’re being fed a one-sided diet of spin. They think they’re getting a fair and balanced diet of truth.

Now if Fox was upfront and honest about what they were actually doing, I doubt they would be nearly as successful. In a supposedly free and open society, when you can’t bludgeon people into thinking and feeling what you want them to think and feel, you have to catch them unawares. You have to seduce them with democratic seeming ideals, and then gently lead them where you want them to go. Fox is, I think, extraordinarily skilled at doing just that. But they are not alone. The propagandistic arts have been honed to very high level in our supposedly democratic society, so much so that that thy threaten to undermine our deepest democratic values.