The transformation of our society into a mass society dependent upon propaganda has changed us, changed the nature of religious belief and the political. Let's take a look at how.
The modern Protestant communion service is the epitome of the triumph of technique over truth – a perfect symbol of the process you describe.
When the chalice was replaced by mini-cups and the wine by impotent, nondescript red juice, the sacrament lost its meaning. We no longer communicate with each other but become like the tray of mini-cups – a mass of isolated, individual consumers, each hygienically sealed off from the other. The banishment of alcohol (spirits) marks our rejection of the power of the Holy Spirit to conquer sin in favor of mass technique (teetotalism).
I'm a Protestant and we use one big silver cup at my church. I have to ask why you think alcohol is so necessary, because that seems to me to be lowering communion to just getting a buzz, which someone could do with any ole non-blessed wine, so why even bother taking communion then, when the same effect can be had by waking up and drinking a little wine at home? You haven't thought through the criticism of using grape juice very well. Also this idea of "nondescript red juice" is an interesting claim; I can definitely taste that its rather strong grape juice at church. Maybe some of the multiple cup guys are using Gatoraide, lol. But don't assume all Protestants are doing that.
A sip of wine doesn't give a buzz, even to a child. It takes part in the meal Christ shared with his disciples. Why do you boast that it's "rather strong grape juice"? Water with a drop of food coloring would be just as good, wouldn't it?
"If your 'worship' service resembles a rock concert or a theatre performance, you have entered the realm of propaganda"
Not sure I understand this point entirely. But I think the propaganda PRECEDES that. The propaganda is that its Ok to have a rock concert in church. The propaganda is also that its Ok for a congregation to number more than 100 people. I mean honestly, its an absurdity to think that when you get over 100 you shouldn't make that a second congregation. And this applies across the board to all denominations. How can more than 100 people observe the eucharist together in one place? You would have to change how the eucharist works massively to accomplish that, or just drop it altogether.
I listened to this while driving to Chicago the other day. While the arguments are accurate, I was left feeling depressed that we are all victims of a consuming propaganda, and that there’s nothing we can do about it. Does there need to be a part 5? Otherwise what benefit is there even to understanding this truth? Or; has the argument followed its logical course to the end of “propaganda” losing its effective meaning?
Yeah. It is a black pilling book. And propaganda is not fizzling out. It is just taking new forms and adapting to new circumstances. Social media, rather than breaking us out of propaganda, allows us to better propagandize each other and allows the algorithms to shape and hold us in ideological ghettos or silos. They are a form of containment. But seeing the way things are honestly and being aware of the problem, knowing you are being trapped, manipulated and your energies and actions are being directed and redirected can help you to make other choices.
The truth is that there are no easy answers. But the path forward involves intentionally breaking out of the “enframing” of the technological world. That begins with prayer, believe it or not. Reconnecting yourself with God. It also means strengthening the bonds of community, for these offer resistance, a buffer to the effects of propaganda. We will have to re-orient our relationship with technology, making a conscious effort to subordinate its presence in our lives to the human. Anyone who tells you or offers you something like “5 steps for battling propaganda” is himself a propagandist working for the system. But just being aware of its presence and influence can help create the beginning of some clarity and the regaining of your own thoughts.
Only the Catholic Church in her magisterial doctrine and sacraments is immune to propaganda due to her unique gift of infallibility and inerrancy. In her human members and institutional structures and culture, however, there is no such immunity.
I'm glad you've written these pieces, though it's a step too far to say that I've enjoyed them.
I struggle with what the church should look like in a propgandized age. Small home churches, perhaps? That avoids the numbers problem, but it generates problems with authority. Who's to say the home churches are hewing to the truth? What differentiates them from a small cult?
I think the Catholic, Orthodox, and mainstream Protestant denominations exist for a reason. People crave an authority to tell them what's right, and how to think about things. Not everyone has the inclination or ability to work out things for themselves, and even those who do don't have enough time to interoggate every assumption they're making. Humans have to defer to expertise to function in any society, never mind modern mass society. Maintaining a personal relationship with God is hard. Denominations should make it easier.
I'm also not convinced that God can't use propoganda for good. If we're all under the sway of propganda anyway, and the only thing that saves us from that is an encounter with the Lord, why not propgandize people into going to church, so that encounter's more likely to happen (or perhaps more likely to be understood when it happens)?
All of this is to say it's not where you start (propagandized), it's where you finish (in a relationship with the Living God).
I am convinced that the path forward is a re-grounding of authority in “persons of authority” who are known to be in deep relationship with God. The mystical. It’s going to be hard.
Orthodox/Catholics call these folks Saints. The Protestant rhetorical attacks here both seem to deeply misunderstand that and are one of the earliest emergences of Propaganda within the church.
It raises the question of whether time and effort are better spent reclaiming the offices of authoritative persons (e.g. the papacy) or creating our own. Either remaking the Catholic/Orthodox church or a second Reformation. Quite a choice, indeed!
Your article certainly seems to imply that one way to perhaps reduce the power of propaganda might be to discard our current twisted fusion of democracy and oligarchy in favor of something more like a monarchy. A strong monarch would at the very least help to cut down the bitter political factionalism that we have to deal with today, which for many people has become a replacement for an actual serious religious faith.
The problem is scale. It’s not so much the form of government per se, but that scaling a society up requires changes in governance. These changes break down local power and communities, necessitating that this void be filled with propaganda.
And yet the person that wrote this will surely not understand that the author of Samuel calling David a man after God's own heart or treating Saul as a bad King were Judean propaganda to assert the right of Judah to rule over the other tribes of Israel. Propaganda is older than you think. And as far as democracy creating a propaganda that triumph in numbers equals truth, behold the so-called ecumenical councils.
ALSO To me this is no deeper than the statement "Cameron Bertuzzi doesn't really believe in Catholicism but in money, so he makes lame Catholic apologetics arguments on youtube because Catholics open their wallet faster than Protestants."
Propaganda has gone independent of ideology due to everyone being poor due to income tax, death tax, anti-Whitism, immigration, etc.
The modern Protestant communion service is the epitome of the triumph of technique over truth – a perfect symbol of the process you describe.
When the chalice was replaced by mini-cups and the wine by impotent, nondescript red juice, the sacrament lost its meaning. We no longer communicate with each other but become like the tray of mini-cups – a mass of isolated, individual consumers, each hygienically sealed off from the other. The banishment of alcohol (spirits) marks our rejection of the power of the Holy Spirit to conquer sin in favor of mass technique (teetotalism).
Even worse, the pre-packaged little cups/wafer that are handed out for congregants to pop open and serve themselves...
I'm a Protestant and we use one big silver cup at my church. I have to ask why you think alcohol is so necessary, because that seems to me to be lowering communion to just getting a buzz, which someone could do with any ole non-blessed wine, so why even bother taking communion then, when the same effect can be had by waking up and drinking a little wine at home? You haven't thought through the criticism of using grape juice very well. Also this idea of "nondescript red juice" is an interesting claim; I can definitely taste that its rather strong grape juice at church. Maybe some of the multiple cup guys are using Gatoraide, lol. But don't assume all Protestants are doing that.
A sip of wine doesn't give a buzz, even to a child. It takes part in the meal Christ shared with his disciples. Why do you boast that it's "rather strong grape juice"? Water with a drop of food coloring would be just as good, wouldn't it?
Give it up and become Catholic.
I expect a listical of Top 5s pablum properly paragraph structured essays hurt my brain tubes.
Ha ha ha.
"If your 'worship' service resembles a rock concert or a theatre performance, you have entered the realm of propaganda"
Not sure I understand this point entirely. But I think the propaganda PRECEDES that. The propaganda is that its Ok to have a rock concert in church. The propaganda is also that its Ok for a congregation to number more than 100 people. I mean honestly, its an absurdity to think that when you get over 100 you shouldn't make that a second congregation. And this applies across the board to all denominations. How can more than 100 people observe the eucharist together in one place? You would have to change how the eucharist works massively to accomplish that, or just drop it altogether.
I listened to this while driving to Chicago the other day. While the arguments are accurate, I was left feeling depressed that we are all victims of a consuming propaganda, and that there’s nothing we can do about it. Does there need to be a part 5? Otherwise what benefit is there even to understanding this truth? Or; has the argument followed its logical course to the end of “propaganda” losing its effective meaning?
Yeah. It is a black pilling book. And propaganda is not fizzling out. It is just taking new forms and adapting to new circumstances. Social media, rather than breaking us out of propaganda, allows us to better propagandize each other and allows the algorithms to shape and hold us in ideological ghettos or silos. They are a form of containment. But seeing the way things are honestly and being aware of the problem, knowing you are being trapped, manipulated and your energies and actions are being directed and redirected can help you to make other choices.
The truth is that there are no easy answers. But the path forward involves intentionally breaking out of the “enframing” of the technological world. That begins with prayer, believe it or not. Reconnecting yourself with God. It also means strengthening the bonds of community, for these offer resistance, a buffer to the effects of propaganda. We will have to re-orient our relationship with technology, making a conscious effort to subordinate its presence in our lives to the human. Anyone who tells you or offers you something like “5 steps for battling propaganda” is himself a propagandist working for the system. But just being aware of its presence and influence can help create the beginning of some clarity and the regaining of your own thoughts.
Only the Catholic Church in her magisterial doctrine and sacraments is immune to propaganda due to her unique gift of infallibility and inerrancy. In her human members and institutional structures and culture, however, there is no such immunity.
I'm glad you've written these pieces, though it's a step too far to say that I've enjoyed them.
I struggle with what the church should look like in a propgandized age. Small home churches, perhaps? That avoids the numbers problem, but it generates problems with authority. Who's to say the home churches are hewing to the truth? What differentiates them from a small cult?
I think the Catholic, Orthodox, and mainstream Protestant denominations exist for a reason. People crave an authority to tell them what's right, and how to think about things. Not everyone has the inclination or ability to work out things for themselves, and even those who do don't have enough time to interoggate every assumption they're making. Humans have to defer to expertise to function in any society, never mind modern mass society. Maintaining a personal relationship with God is hard. Denominations should make it easier.
I'm also not convinced that God can't use propoganda for good. If we're all under the sway of propganda anyway, and the only thing that saves us from that is an encounter with the Lord, why not propgandize people into going to church, so that encounter's more likely to happen (or perhaps more likely to be understood when it happens)?
All of this is to say it's not where you start (propagandized), it's where you finish (in a relationship with the Living God).
Thanks for writing.
I am convinced that the path forward is a re-grounding of authority in “persons of authority” who are known to be in deep relationship with God. The mystical. It’s going to be hard.
Orthodox/Catholics call these folks Saints. The Protestant rhetorical attacks here both seem to deeply misunderstand that and are one of the earliest emergences of Propaganda within the church.
It raises the question of whether time and effort are better spent reclaiming the offices of authoritative persons (e.g. the papacy) or creating our own. Either remaking the Catholic/Orthodox church or a second Reformation. Quite a choice, indeed!
Mystical authority is not in offices. It's in the Saints.
Your article certainly seems to imply that one way to perhaps reduce the power of propaganda might be to discard our current twisted fusion of democracy and oligarchy in favor of something more like a monarchy. A strong monarch would at the very least help to cut down the bitter political factionalism that we have to deal with today, which for many people has become a replacement for an actual serious religious faith.
The problem is scale. It’s not so much the form of government per se, but that scaling a society up requires changes in governance. These changes break down local power and communities, necessitating that this void be filled with propaganda.
I have the same feeling. They got to be hard to write too. A relentless black pill, perhaps the most blacking pilling of all his books.
And yet the person that wrote this will surely not understand that the author of Samuel calling David a man after God's own heart or treating Saul as a bad King were Judean propaganda to assert the right of Judah to rule over the other tribes of Israel. Propaganda is older than you think. And as far as democracy creating a propaganda that triumph in numbers equals truth, behold the so-called ecumenical councils.
ALSO To me this is no deeper than the statement "Cameron Bertuzzi doesn't really believe in Catholicism but in money, so he makes lame Catholic apologetics arguments on youtube because Catholics open their wallet faster than Protestants."
Propaganda has gone independent of ideology due to everyone being poor due to income tax, death tax, anti-Whitism, immigration, etc.