Necessary propaganda

In this conversation Zak Stein said:

"My argument would be that under conditions where you can actually effectively implement propaganda, sometimes it’s good to do so in order to get certain things to happen at scale that are difficult for people to do psychologically. [...] When there’s imminent threat, sometimes you do need to mobilize the people through means of communication where you don’t have the time to be fully educational, even though you’d like to be."

Recall my rationale for this blog being a propaganda machine given the imminent threat of rising fascism. (See the section on framing.) One can debate whether I'm doing it well or effectively or not. But I really think it's a necessity to fight back at the trench level where these language wars are playing out.

The academic agenda of building an educational consilience project that Zak talks about is necessary too, but it's a longer term project that will fail when (not if) the fascists take complete control. Such intellectual projects are typically the first to go. We have to win the language wars and that requires a lot of votes that academy does not motivate. (Also see the section on metaprogressive and post-progressive politics in the 2nd link.)