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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
"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.
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.
I do hope you don't get the wrong idea from my other comments:
I appreciate these novel thoughts. None of this is valueless, to me. I don't write lengthy responses discussing thoughts I find valueless. "Casting my pearls before swine," if you will. The fact that I'm engaging and pushing back means I hope you'll fulfill the old Proverb: "Reprove a wise man and he will love you." (9:8) I'm intrigued to see if you will have some good rejoinders.
Your accusation of certain professionally-produced worship atmospheres ("if it resembles a rock concert this actually cuts people off from God") is based on what Scripture? In Amos 9:11, God says "In that day I will restore the fallen tabernacle of David," which refers to the tent where David commissioned priests to worship God continually (1 Chronicles 16:37-43). Certainly, King David began his worship journey out in the fields, just him and God, but it eventually got to the place where he was dancing so outrageously before the ark of the covenant that his wife was appalled by the spectacle (1 Chronicles 15:29). Certainly you could parallel David's lavish offerings, the celebratory raisin cakes he gave the people, and all of the other fanfare with the worship of pagan deities surrounding his time and culture, but this made them no less beautiful, true, and desirable in the eyes of the Lord, whom the people of Israel were actually worshipping.
When Jesus cast His vision for worship to the woman at the well, He didn't mention whether His people would be silent, or loud, or whether they'd use specific instruments, or be in a certain type of place: He merely said it would be in spirit and in truth. Those are the important things.
And if you're in a setting which aims to point to the glory, light, and majesty of God using all of the latest techniques afforded to our culture, aiming to remind your soul of the enduring truth of God's goodness-- a tool and production which is supposed to assist your emotions in shedding the baggage of destractions and trials-- and you're still faking your worship... if you can't find a way to worship in spirit and truth even there... that might be a 'you' problem.
You know that calm, reverential atmosphere of a small, intimate worship service? I don’t know how to put this delicately, but… that was emotion too, brother. You simply prefer a different “flavor” of emotion.
Did all the "technique" and lavish expenses of Solomon's temple place Israel in a "simulacrum," preventing them from having an actual encounter with God? Just the opposite! When the whole elaborate affair was constructed, His presence came down so heavily the priests couldn't even stand! (2 Chronicles 5:11-14)
But there's also some "True Scotsman" stuff going on here. Apparently, if people are having authentic encounters with God, then you're not using propaganda. But if you're using propaganda, and think your people are developing their relationships with God, you're lying to yourself. It's impossible, apparently. So this assertion becomes unfalsifiable because if your practices are leading to genuine faithfulness, they're not propaganda, but if they aren't, then they're propaganda. How can you be sure all of this isn't the propaganda of the spiritual enemy? That he wants you to keep your hands off so powerful and effective a technique which could be employed for evangelism and discipleship?
"If you trust in God, why not make that trust complete?" One might respond, "If you trust in God to send the rain and cause seeds to grow, why do all the work of farming?" If you trust God to take you where He needs you to be, why purchase a car or take a bus? If you trust God to supply your food, why own a refrigerator? If Jesus trusted God to supply fish for Peter and Andrew, why did He command them to let their nets down? God calls us to do many things in life, and He is not apalled by the idea of using technique to assist us.
Israel's groups were regularly quite large, and you asserted that "Anytime you are organizing and unifying people at scale, propaganda techniques are in play." So were these people united by propaganda? What is tradition and myth but the propaganda of the dead? What is the Bible but truth-based propaganda in written format? If God is hoping to unify His body under His Lordship, wouldn't He have to use propaganda to do so?
Could it be that perhaps all the negative things about propaganda (the way it causes people to cease thinking through their preconceptions, the fact that it turns narrative formation into an arms race, all that) are simply true of lie-based propaganda?
See, and I can agree that action shapes thought, but then you add "and not the other way around." That, I can't agree with. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." (Proverbs 23:7) All the most consequential decisions in my life were the ones I thought of before performing them. When my thought becomes clouded, my action becomes hesitant. To me, it seems to be a cyclical relationship, where habits formed before the reach of my earliest memory shaped my thoughts, but likewise my thoughts are constantly modifying and redirecting my actions.
So, yeah, it's just little things like that: the "not the other way around," that make me wonder if you really are thinking this through yourself, or simply letting yourself be carried along on Ellul's stream of consciousness.
He talks about "class" as an abstraction created by propaganda, but the same could be said for most layers of categorization. There's the whole question of how much of a chair can you chop off before it ceases to be a chair-- the Ship of Theseus question-- how many grains of sand does it take to make a heap-- etc., etc.. If you boil it down, most things we "identify" as being distinct are really just categorization of the existing material. There are no "nations," no "borders," except those that humans imagine and enforce. There is no "chihuahua," just small dogs with bad tempers. There is no "valley," just a portion of the Earth's surface that drops down and then rises again. Of course it's silly to say that these things "don't exist" simply because their definitions can be hazy on certain edge cases.
The creation of "class" is artificial, sure, but it serves to identify and categorize a certain phenomenon wherein certain segments of society are able to identify with each others' experience, and not with those in other segments of society. This is not "propaganda" any more than the variety in species of dogs is.
I don't know how much stock I put in this "The medium is the message" axiom. It's like saying that it doesn't matter which religion you follow so long as you are religious. Or like saying it doesn't matter if 2+2=4 or 2+2=5 so long as everyone is engaged in math. Or it doesn't matter whether the gravitational constant is 9.8 or 20.5 so long as everyone is engaged in physics.
The application of technique is only trivial if there is no truth.
If, on the other hand, there is such a thing as good and such a thing as evil, then we find ourselves at an axiom which I have seen proven more solidly again and again: the surest way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Sure, the gun manufacturer may be pleased that both sides of the war are purchasing guns, but this doesn't make the good guy's gun any less effective against the bad guy.
And with that being said, couldn't all of these "underlying ideologies" ("you must be propagandized," for example) simply be rephrased?
"You must be religious," can be rephrased as "the supernatural exists, and you owe yourself an informed awareness of it."
"You must learn math," can be rephrased as "logic has demonstrated its relation to reality, and you owe yourself a working knowledge of how to quantify and manipulate those measurements."
"You must learn physics," can be rephrased as "mathematical calculations have demonstrated a relation to reality, and the application of nature's laws have given many distinct advantages in the quest to subdue Earth, so you owe it to yourself and those who will come after you to discover new applications for these laws, discover new laws, etc.."
And couldn't we rephrase "you must be propagandized" to say "there is value in unity?"
Has history not demonstrated that larger societies, even if bound loosely, can survive longer, participate in trade more effectively, and cooexist more happily than smaller, traditional societies which get crushed by totalitarian neighbors? It seems to me that technology is a tool, and those who refuse to use the most powerful tools find themselves at the mercy of those who do. The Catholic Church was once strongly against the printing press due to the power it gave Martin Luther, but last I checked, those hymnals that are now in every pew weren't handwritten. The Amish have secluded themselves off from society and have managed to maintain their way of life without the advantages of electricity, but take away the propaganda-driven United States, and they'd serve whoever wanted their service, or perish.
The ethics of a tool are neutral. The same hammer that can fix up the bed frames at an old folks' home can also be used to bludgeon someone in the head and rob them. The same printing press which can mass-produce Bibles for the common folk can also spread lurid literature that inflames carnal lusts. The same video camera that films your daughter's 1st birthday party could be used to film a hostage tape. One man may get his grain ground at a windmill because he is industrious, and while the mill works at that he will get other chores done; another man may use the same mill because he is lazy. The ethical variable is never so much the tool as it is the hand that wields it.
If we can agree on propaganda as a tool, and that the ethics of a tool are neutral, then the real question is: why would we leave such an effective tool in the hands of our enemies? The ones not of flesh and blood, especially. Why shouldn't the church master YouTube as heartily as they mastered the printing press? If we appreciate our nations' militaries using the tools of war to preserve our way of life from physical threats, why shouldn't we appreciate culture warriors who use the tools of culture to preserve our traditions, beliefs, and values from ideological threats?
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'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I do hope you don't get the wrong idea from my other comments:
I appreciate these novel thoughts. None of this is valueless, to me. I don't write lengthy responses discussing thoughts I find valueless. "Casting my pearls before swine," if you will. The fact that I'm engaging and pushing back means I hope you'll fulfill the old Proverb: "Reprove a wise man and he will love you." (9:8) I'm intrigued to see if you will have some good rejoinders.
Your accusation of certain professionally-produced worship atmospheres ("if it resembles a rock concert this actually cuts people off from God") is based on what Scripture? In Amos 9:11, God says "In that day I will restore the fallen tabernacle of David," which refers to the tent where David commissioned priests to worship God continually (1 Chronicles 16:37-43). Certainly, King David began his worship journey out in the fields, just him and God, but it eventually got to the place where he was dancing so outrageously before the ark of the covenant that his wife was appalled by the spectacle (1 Chronicles 15:29). Certainly you could parallel David's lavish offerings, the celebratory raisin cakes he gave the people, and all of the other fanfare with the worship of pagan deities surrounding his time and culture, but this made them no less beautiful, true, and desirable in the eyes of the Lord, whom the people of Israel were actually worshipping.
When Jesus cast His vision for worship to the woman at the well, He didn't mention whether His people would be silent, or loud, or whether they'd use specific instruments, or be in a certain type of place: He merely said it would be in spirit and in truth. Those are the important things.
And if you're in a setting which aims to point to the glory, light, and majesty of God using all of the latest techniques afforded to our culture, aiming to remind your soul of the enduring truth of God's goodness-- a tool and production which is supposed to assist your emotions in shedding the baggage of destractions and trials-- and you're still faking your worship... if you can't find a way to worship in spirit and truth even there... that might be a 'you' problem.
You know that calm, reverential atmosphere of a small, intimate worship service? I don’t know how to put this delicately, but… that was emotion too, brother. You simply prefer a different “flavor” of emotion.
Did all the "technique" and lavish expenses of Solomon's temple place Israel in a "simulacrum," preventing them from having an actual encounter with God? Just the opposite! When the whole elaborate affair was constructed, His presence came down so heavily the priests couldn't even stand! (2 Chronicles 5:11-14)
But there's also some "True Scotsman" stuff going on here. Apparently, if people are having authentic encounters with God, then you're not using propaganda. But if you're using propaganda, and think your people are developing their relationships with God, you're lying to yourself. It's impossible, apparently. So this assertion becomes unfalsifiable because if your practices are leading to genuine faithfulness, they're not propaganda, but if they aren't, then they're propaganda. How can you be sure all of this isn't the propaganda of the spiritual enemy? That he wants you to keep your hands off so powerful and effective a technique which could be employed for evangelism and discipleship?
"If you trust in God, why not make that trust complete?" One might respond, "If you trust in God to send the rain and cause seeds to grow, why do all the work of farming?" If you trust God to take you where He needs you to be, why purchase a car or take a bus? If you trust God to supply your food, why own a refrigerator? If Jesus trusted God to supply fish for Peter and Andrew, why did He command them to let their nets down? God calls us to do many things in life, and He is not apalled by the idea of using technique to assist us.
Israel's groups were regularly quite large, and you asserted that "Anytime you are organizing and unifying people at scale, propaganda techniques are in play." So were these people united by propaganda? What is tradition and myth but the propaganda of the dead? What is the Bible but truth-based propaganda in written format? If God is hoping to unify His body under His Lordship, wouldn't He have to use propaganda to do so?
Could it be that perhaps all the negative things about propaganda (the way it causes people to cease thinking through their preconceptions, the fact that it turns narrative formation into an arms race, all that) are simply true of lie-based propaganda?
See, and I can agree that action shapes thought, but then you add "and not the other way around." That, I can't agree with. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." (Proverbs 23:7) All the most consequential decisions in my life were the ones I thought of before performing them. When my thought becomes clouded, my action becomes hesitant. To me, it seems to be a cyclical relationship, where habits formed before the reach of my earliest memory shaped my thoughts, but likewise my thoughts are constantly modifying and redirecting my actions.
So, yeah, it's just little things like that: the "not the other way around," that make me wonder if you really are thinking this through yourself, or simply letting yourself be carried along on Ellul's stream of consciousness.
He talks about "class" as an abstraction created by propaganda, but the same could be said for most layers of categorization. There's the whole question of how much of a chair can you chop off before it ceases to be a chair-- the Ship of Theseus question-- how many grains of sand does it take to make a heap-- etc., etc.. If you boil it down, most things we "identify" as being distinct are really just categorization of the existing material. There are no "nations," no "borders," except those that humans imagine and enforce. There is no "chihuahua," just small dogs with bad tempers. There is no "valley," just a portion of the Earth's surface that drops down and then rises again. Of course it's silly to say that these things "don't exist" simply because their definitions can be hazy on certain edge cases.
The creation of "class" is artificial, sure, but it serves to identify and categorize a certain phenomenon wherein certain segments of society are able to identify with each others' experience, and not with those in other segments of society. This is not "propaganda" any more than the variety in species of dogs is.
I don't know how much stock I put in this "The medium is the message" axiom. It's like saying that it doesn't matter which religion you follow so long as you are religious. Or like saying it doesn't matter if 2+2=4 or 2+2=5 so long as everyone is engaged in math. Or it doesn't matter whether the gravitational constant is 9.8 or 20.5 so long as everyone is engaged in physics.
The application of technique is only trivial if there is no truth.
If, on the other hand, there is such a thing as good and such a thing as evil, then we find ourselves at an axiom which I have seen proven more solidly again and again: the surest way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Sure, the gun manufacturer may be pleased that both sides of the war are purchasing guns, but this doesn't make the good guy's gun any less effective against the bad guy.
And with that being said, couldn't all of these "underlying ideologies" ("you must be propagandized," for example) simply be rephrased?
"You must be religious," can be rephrased as "the supernatural exists, and you owe yourself an informed awareness of it."
"You must learn math," can be rephrased as "logic has demonstrated its relation to reality, and you owe yourself a working knowledge of how to quantify and manipulate those measurements."
"You must learn physics," can be rephrased as "mathematical calculations have demonstrated a relation to reality, and the application of nature's laws have given many distinct advantages in the quest to subdue Earth, so you owe it to yourself and those who will come after you to discover new applications for these laws, discover new laws, etc.."
And couldn't we rephrase "you must be propagandized" to say "there is value in unity?"
Has history not demonstrated that larger societies, even if bound loosely, can survive longer, participate in trade more effectively, and cooexist more happily than smaller, traditional societies which get crushed by totalitarian neighbors? It seems to me that technology is a tool, and those who refuse to use the most powerful tools find themselves at the mercy of those who do. The Catholic Church was once strongly against the printing press due to the power it gave Martin Luther, but last I checked, those hymnals that are now in every pew weren't handwritten. The Amish have secluded themselves off from society and have managed to maintain their way of life without the advantages of electricity, but take away the propaganda-driven United States, and they'd serve whoever wanted their service, or perish.
The ethics of a tool are neutral. The same hammer that can fix up the bed frames at an old folks' home can also be used to bludgeon someone in the head and rob them. The same printing press which can mass-produce Bibles for the common folk can also spread lurid literature that inflames carnal lusts. The same video camera that films your daughter's 1st birthday party could be used to film a hostage tape. One man may get his grain ground at a windmill because he is industrious, and while the mill works at that he will get other chores done; another man may use the same mill because he is lazy. The ethical variable is never so much the tool as it is the hand that wields it.
If we can agree on propaganda as a tool, and that the ethics of a tool are neutral, then the real question is: why would we leave such an effective tool in the hands of our enemies? The ones not of flesh and blood, especially. Why shouldn't the church master YouTube as heartily as they mastered the printing press? If we appreciate our nations' militaries using the tools of war to preserve our way of life from physical threats, why shouldn't we appreciate culture warriors who use the tools of culture to preserve our traditions, beliefs, and values from ideological threats?