Even in Caesar’s time……
Even in Caesar’s Rome there were traffic jams it seems. The Emperor himself ordered that carts could only travel through the city on alternate days. So what’s new? Nothing really. We are reminded of this in the wisdom of Confucius who cast a wary eye on the way we use language. Or more accurately the way we allow ourselves to be sucked in by loaded meanings. Confucius, quoted by Steven Poole in his riveting Unspeak, says basically that when we use language incorrectly, society suffers: the public will not know what is really meant and will act inappropriately.
Unitarians like to look behind the reasons for things, to query the widely held view. Sharing no official creed, we also hopefully challenge the accepted meaning of words and sentences……to see what they hide. Some weeks ago a callow TV3 journalist blithely used the phrase “war on terror” without a hint of irony or explanation of its propagandist bent.
Campaigners for older people unwittingly use the words “Fair Deal” to describe a proposed payments system for nursing home fees. Whether this system is good or not is irrelevant. It was probably christened “Fair Deal” by some expensive PR guru who knew the power of words, and how they can slip into normal speech.
See how shoppers and economists refer to the High Street when discussing retail sales, a term which has only emerged in Ireland since the M&S and Tesco invasion. Many years ago a colleague said he once worked for the Impartial Reporter! A personal favourite political Unspeak is ……Progressive Democrat.
Steven Poole explains that Unspeak is a mode of speech that persuades by stealth, and is often politically loaded. Let’s whiz through some obvious ones.
Pro-choice (pro-abortion, against criminalisation of abortion)
Pro-life (anti-abortion although sometimes pro-capital punishment),
Friends of the Earth (environmental campaigners)
Tax relief (tax reduction),
Climate Change (global warming)
Repetitive Administration of Legitimate Force (torture)
Intelligent Design (creationism)
Coalition of the Willing (do blind eyes turned at the US Shannon throughput make Ireland a member?)
Genetically enhanced foods (genetically modified)
Propaganda
It’s all about conditioning the public mind to what is often immoral practice.
Chomsky in The Chomsky Reader says the US business community understands of the importance of “controlling the public mind”. The rise of Public Relations is one manifestation of this concern for “the engineering of consent”. Part of this has been to create a conception of the “good life”, one that happens to conform to the needs of the wealthy and privileged, those who dominate the economy as well as the political and ideological systems.
Chomsky says for instance that development might be presented in terms of the benefits to indigenous populations, not the interests of American investors and corporations. He is, of course, a dissident in the finest sense and seems to be blurring the distinctions, if there is one, between propaganda and Public Relations. But are they in fact separate disciplines?
One benign definition of Public Relations is “building sustainable relations with all publics in order to create a positive brand image”. Another is “a form of communication that is primarily directed towards gaining public understanding and acceptance”.
How does it differ from Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell’s view that propaganda is “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist”.
Propaganda aims to influence opinions and behaviour, like Public Relations. However, the former, instead of impartially providing information, can be deliberately misleading or use fallacies, which, while sometimes convincing, are not necessarily valid. But it does use some of the techniques of PR. This is the challenge for every citizen, to be wary of both PR and propaganda. The Lisbon Treaty debate reminds us that PR and propaganda are still very much with us, just like in Confucius’s time. Indeed one of the reasons PR was created was to take the risk out of democracy! To manufacture consent!
Paul Murray Dublin Unitarian Church
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