James Hoggan
Today's blog is a variety of short excerpts from the newly released 2nd Edition of James Hoggan's book I'm Right and You're and Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean it Up.
James Hoggan is president of the Vancouver PR firm Hoggan and Associates, past chair of the David Suzuki Foundation board, and founder of the influential website DeSmog Blog.
Excerpt from the Book
We have an almost extreme situation where the very intelligent elites are sort of mumbling, and bumbling, and proceeding as if they were communicating — when they’re not.
Daniel Yankelovich
image:https://wonderingfair.com/2016/07/25/question-time/public-discourse-cartoon/
image:https://www.gocomics.com/marshallramsey
It’s true, of course, that propaganda spreads lies and disinformation, but persuasion is not its real power. Back then I didn’t fully understand the central, corrosive role of ideology and the psychology of teams. Over the last decade,I’ve learned that campaigns such as Foreign Funded Radicals and Ethical Oil were designed to create discord and confusion by creating division. Disinformation was merely the nudge and the self-justification. Although the scale and content are different, the same holds true of the Brexit and Trump presidential campaign strategies,which share age-old propaganda techniques of relentless ad hominem attacks on out-groups, attacks that deepen fear, anger and division. Whether we’re talking about foreign funded radicals, asylum seekers from Central America or people fleeing the drought and violence of North Africa — it’s the same. Bad actors stir up fake threats and ugly feelings so voters will support flawed public policy decisions, and to create scapegoats of groups that deserve our support, not demonization. Loss of faith in public discourse is the outcome. Misinformation is not at the toxic heart of propaganda. Tribalism is. It results in that deep us-versus-them divide that inoculates people against any evidence that challenges the beliefs of their team. Objective facts and collective reasoning vanish in a social pathology that predisposes us to being misled. Genuine democratic discourse requires engagement in a healthy public square, and for that we need to defuse polarizing propaganda and create conditions that allow reasonable conversations,whether about the environment or social justice. We need to become savvier about how propaganda works, not only because we don’t want to become its victim, but also because we don’t want to inadvertently contribute to its dark divisive purpose, which hot-headed,knee-jerk response risks doing.