A Word for Growing Rotten Gardens
Propaganda • noun • (praw-pah-gan-duh)
Definition: communication that prioritizes coercion, power and status quo over truth.
Origin: English
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My book THE CRIME WITHOUT A NAME was released on October 12, 2021 and NPR has picked it as one of the top books of the year!
You can order the book—including the audiobook—and watch recordings of my book tour discussions at Eaton and the New York Public Library at thecrimewithoutaname.com.
This week, the world has watched Vladimir Putin and the Russian government attempt to justify a war based on the dissemination of lies.
Putin has articulated a warped and fictional interpretation of Ukrainian and Russian history and he has attempted to justify his unjustifiable invasion by claiming that the Russian army is “denazifying” Ukrainian society. The fact that Ukraine’s courageous president Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish and some of his ancestors died fighting against the Nazis in World War II is immaterial to Putin’s lies.
The world knows that his words are lies, yet Putin continues to articulate these lies because he hopes that they will take root and grow in our minds and our souls. If enough people can believe that these lies are true, creating bad faith or mauvaise foi, then Putin’s terror has now become justified in the minds of those whom the lies have taken root.
Putin is attempting to cultivate a corrupted garden that exists to justify terrorism and subjugation.
Putin’s words are the definition of propaganda. The linguistic roots of propaganda derive from “propagate,” and propagation is necessary for the growth of any garden. Putin’s garden is one driven by corruption and terror, and the tendency of authoritarians and tyrants to grow poisonous gardens is why “propaganda” has an a negative meaning today.
Far too many people want to grow gardens that harm instead of help others.
The Origins of Propaganda
To understand the evolution of propaganda and its dystopian impacts that we are currently witnessing, one must first examine the battle for Christianity that emerged in Europe during the 16th century as Protestantism spread across the continent and the world.
Protestantism originated as a protest against the Roman Catholic church, and what allowed it to rapidly spread across the continent was the fact that Martin Luther had, in addition to launching Protestantism, also translated the Bible into German from Latin. In 1522, Luther’s translation of the New Testament into German became public, and in 1534, so did his German translation of the entire Bible.
Luther’s translations soon inspired others to translate the Bible into their common language, and in 1611, the King James version of the Bible was published. As more Europeans read the Bible in their native languages, Protestantism spread across Europe.
Prior to Luther’s translation most Europeans could not read the Bible because only priests and nobility could read or speak Latin. Europeans practiced a religion that they could not read. Therefore, they were dependent upon priests and the Catholic church to translate or illuminate the teachings of the Bible.
By controlling the language of the Bible, the Catholic church could control an entire continent. The Catholic church possessed the power of God and could determine a person’s eternal soul, and their total control of the language and word of God made them the most powerful force in Europe.
By translating the Bible into German, Luther shattered the Catholic church’s control, and now normal Europeans had the capacity to read the Bible on their own. The decentralization of biblical power resulted in numerous Protestant sects springing up across Europe. Additionally, European colonization had commenced around this time, and now these Protestant sects began boarding boats with the goal of spreading their interpretations of the Bible to what they considered the “uncivilized” world.
The Catholic church did not think highly of Protestantism challenging its continental authority, so clashes between Catholics and Protestants soon consumed the continent. And as Protestants extended the battle for souls beyond Europe, so did the Roman Catholic church.
In 1622, Pope Gregory XV issued the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, or Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, in the original Latin. This congregation oversaw Catholic missionaries around the world and ordered them to propagate Catholicism so that Protestantism could not take root and grow.
Regardless of one’s opinion of Christianity, Catholicism, or Protestantism, the original goal of propaganda was not to knowingly disseminate lies and manipulate people. Instead it was an absurd battle for spiritual domination predicated on the belief that one’s faith in Jesus Christ was less important than the organization who controlled the narrative of Jesus Christ.
Despite not being an intentional dissemination of lies, propaganda originated in Europe as a battle between religious sects over their capacity to dominate the world and spread their interpretations of the truth.
When the truth no longer equates to a path towards enlightenment and instead is merely the focal point of a power struggle, it becomes inevitable that the truth will soon become a secondary concern and power the primary concern. This inevitable shift brings us to our modern understanding of propaganda.
Today’s Propaganda
In the 20th century, propaganda began spreading throughout the secular and political realms.
The expansion of mass media through print, radio, television and eventually the internet created an opportunity for power-hungry individuals and organizations to disseminate lies with the intent to manipulate the public. It now became possible to create global, multifaceted propaganda campaigns whose goal was to destroy and obscure the truth. Authoritarians used propaganda to justify wars and to turn people against one another, and Putin is attempting to do the same thing today.
Also, modern understandings of propaganda extend beyond politics, and in many Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking countries, “propaganda” is used to describe commercials and advertisements. They know that the language of marketing also does not value the truth. The purpose of this language is merely to coerce people into buying a product regardless of whether the product is beneficial or needed. The lies of marketing and commercials might be less immediately catastrophic, but that does not mean that the words are no longer lies.
Today, many of us have become desensitized to lies while also outraged at their destructive impact, yet our actively passive status quo inclines us to believe that we are incapable of preventing their dissemination.
We know that the commercials we see everyday are mostly lies. At best, they are communications that value profits over the truth, yet we also struggle to imagine a world with greater regulation over advertisements.
So much of our society depends on advertising revenue that it is hard to imagine how our society could exist without submitting ourselves to unhealthy, mostly false information.
Advertisements for products then bleed into political advertisements, and now we have tragically returned to the modern-day iteration of the Catholic vs. Protestant battle over the truth.
Regardless of whether the Democrat or Republican candidate tells the truth in their advertisements, we all know that eventually the truth will become a distant second in the quest to win political power.
Once politicians obtain power via the spreading of lies, they will continue to do so once they are in office. When the world a powerful person has created is built upon lies, they will become incentivized to believe that their own lies are the truth because once the truth becomes known to them and others, their power will crumble.
Propaganda encourages people to become delusional. Putin’s delusions have started a senseless war that could kill thousands of people, and has left people fearful of a World War III.
To combat propaganda, we must hold on to truth, satyagraha, and work to cultivate a nurturing good place, an Eǔtopia.
Enlightening... and truth will set you free