You Don't Want to Hear This, But...

"Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve." We need to use what we have learned about propaganda to clear our minds, retain our thoughts, and not be used to serve some agenda.

“Heritage Americans” vs. “America is an idea.”

Does anyone even remember that the National Conservatism 2025 conference happened Sept 2-4, seven days ago now as of the writing of this sentence? Do we remember a widely praised speech given there by Senator Eric Schmitt? It underscores for us Jacques Ellul’s argument:

“Propaganda must start with current events.”

Why is this important? Events have moved on. First there was the brutal stabbing of Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte, North Carolina light rail train by a black “career criminal.” Then Charlie Kirk was murdered, shot in broad daylight at an event being held at Utah Valley University. One after the other. We are given no time to reflect. This is the norm. Even when the happenings of the day are not this dramatic, tragic or awful, we are encouraged to move on to the next story, the new “current thing.”

“Neither past events not the great metaphysical problems challenge the average individual, the ordinary man of our times. He is not sensible to what is tragic in life; he is not anguished by a question God might put to him; he does not feel challenged except by current events, political or economic.”

Every reaction that we are seeing occurs within this context. One event replaced by the next. Before you have had time to process this one, along comes another. And another.

“It cannot permit time for thought or reflection. A man caught up in the news must remain on the surface of events; he is carried along in the current … there is never any awareness — of himself, of his condition, of his society — for the man who lives by current events.”

Increasingly this is our experience.

“One thought drives away another; old facts are chased away by new ones. Under these conditions there is no thought. In fact, modern man does not think about problems, he feels them.”

This is a big part of why I don’t make a habit of talking about current events, the thing in the news today. And even when I decide to talk about the news, it seems I am too late. This is a big part of why I started this Substack, why I call it “Seeking the Hidden Thing.” This is why it was important, I thought, to spend eight long articles going through Jacques Ellul’s Propaganda: the Formation of Men’s Attitudes. We need to apply what we have learned to help us sift through what is happening on the surface so as to hopefully understand better what is really going on. If that remains opaque to us because we are not privy to the back rooms of major happenings, at least we can step back and understand the ways in which attempts are being made to manipulate us.

“This situation makes ‘current events man’ a ready target for propaganda.”

The best thing we can do when we encounter the news, and it is almost impossible these days to avoid contact with current events, is to keep a sense of detachment and as ask ourselves, “How am I being manipulated here?” Is this cynical? Yes. It is unfortunate, but a certain degree of cynicism is a necessary armour in our massified technological society where we are inundated with propaganda messaging.

This brings us to Senator Schmitt’s widely acclaimed speech given at NatCon a week or so ago. He emphasized in the speech his deep roots in America and that America is a people, not a set of principles.

You can listen to a portion of it here:

The rhetoric is soaring and it touches all the right notes. It provides a clear contrast with those want to argue that America is made up of a set of universal principles that can be exported anywhere and applied in any context. In doing so, any people, an person can become American if they just embrace the American ideals. Schmitt argues, in contrast, that “our people” tamed a continent and built a civilization. As a result, thousands of years from now people will know the name “America” because of what “Americans” achieved.

But here is problem. This is every bit as much an abstraction as is the notion that America is a set of universal ideals. We are all supposed to just know who the “real Americans” are, the ones who built America. The first thing we can say is that they did not have in mind that they were building this thing that today is known as “America.” That America is a mythic creation, largely that of propaganda.

This is not to say that this myth lacks any basis in reality. Just the opposite. It is very much based on something real. In the same way, “America is an idea” also has its basis in something real. There have been numerous American ideas. There is The Founding. The Manifest Destiny. The American Dream. The Great Melting Pot. The Space Race (If you doubt me on this, go visit the US Astronaut Hall of Fame at the Kennedy Space Center). The Civil War fight against slavery. The World War Two fight against Fascism, Hitler and the Nazis. The Cold War stand against communism. Nation of Immigrants. The Global War on Terror. You get the idea. You can add to the list now the new narrative of America as Our People or the America of Heritage Americans. Yes. Your family has been in the country for 15 generations. You have ancestors whose names we might recognize. And maybe your family really is tied to small piece of the country and you have a deep attachment to the land there and the people with whom you live all have multi-generational ties to that same place. Your identity is real. More real than most, that is for sure. This is a good thing. Hold on to that identity and don’t let them take it from you.

But also know, that there are those, some who are well meaning — Senator Schmitt seems quite sincere — and some who are cold, calculating and manipulative, and they will take this thing that is real for you, they will abstract it and they will rationalized it. They will turn it into an idea that can then be refined and used by others to gain political power. All of these grand political narratives are based on “myths” — not “myths” as in made up, but “myths” as in the core foundational stories of a people. Ellul says it this way:

“Pre-propaganda does not have a precise ideological objective; it has nothing to do with opinion, an idea, a doctrine…he must be made to live in a certain psychological climate.”

A picture gets painted for you. It is abstract enough that it doesn’t get specific about details. It also has enough basis in something tangible that the listener can fill in the details from his own experiences or his own hopes and aspirations.

“Without giving a metaphysical analysis of the myth, we will mention the great myths that been created by various propagandas: the myth of race, of the proletariat, of the Fuhrer, of the communist society, of productivity.”

“America is an idea” is one such myth. As is the myth of the “Heritage American.” The myth of “Our People” that Senator Schmitt evokes. There is truth to the notion that “America is an idea.” After the first great wave of immigration the instrument that helped bond people quickly in something of a cohesive whole was the notion that America was founded to instantiate a set of noble ideas. This was done through its founding documents and the institutions that guard and protect those ideas. In this regard, America became something akin to a Great Awakening tent revival meeting. You come to America, you leave your home behind, you convert and become an American. America was transformed into something akin to a religion in order to build a cohesive nation state in the late 19th and 20th centuries. This religion was interwoven through the extant Protestant mindset where the two in some ways become synonymous with each other. Another big American idea, another American myth is “America is a Christian Nation.” It must be understood that these big ideas, these myths, are not pulled out of a hat. They are not made out of whole cloth from nothing.

“A reflex or myth cannot be created out of nothing, as if the individual were a neutral and empty ground on which anything could be built.”

Senator Schmitt is correct when he says that you simply cannot transmit American ideas anywhere and expect them to work the way they do in America. Nor does the attempt to adopt these ideas in some far away land make someone an American. So what is it that makes one an American? This is why this kind of rhetoric makes such good propaganda. You, as the audience, fill in what you want to fill in. But there are no specifics given. Maybe there is a wink and nod that we all know who we mean, but it is never said with any degree of specificity. But what is important is that you feel like Senator Schmitt gets you. He is is one of “our guys.” When the time comes, and he asks for money, volunteers and votes, you will be there for him. It is this dynamic that makes this propaganda. You are being made ready to serve.

Again, it seems like Senator Schmitt is sincere. Maybe he is. But his set of ideas and abstractions are every bit as much an “idea” as is the ideas that make up “America is an idea.” There is a broad generalization, a broad abstraction at a level similar to ideas like “freedom” or “democracy” or “rights.” We all have a sense of these ideas but they are notoriously difficult to pin down. There are cadres of lawyers who make a good living at fighting over what these ideas mean in specific situations. Yet, “democracy” still continues to have a strong political valence. So too this idea that “America is a people, not an idea.” It is an idea that allows a wide swath of people to feel as if they are a part of “our people.” But it also does not say with any specificity who isn’t an American and what should happen to them. It is an idea that can at once be given soaring tones, as in this speech. It also can be used to stir up resentment and anger. It is a perfect vehicle for the propaganda of agitation, agitprop. Once this idea takes root in the minds of the masses, it can be then used to mobilize them for all kind of political ends. This is why it is important take the things we have learned with Ellul over the last months here and then apply them to current narratives to understand the ways in which we are being manipulated. In understanding, we can maintain some distance from them and retain our own thoughts and our own impetus for action.

Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk

I hesitate to say anything at all about these two shocking and horrific murders. I am sure that whatever I do say will make people upset with me. I am saddened, troubled and angry at both deaths. At the same time, I feel a conflicting emptiness. Something about the reaction to their deaths, I think. I feel like I have been watching it from afar, unable to bring myself to engage the growing political narrative. It has spun out of control. While Iryna’s murder just made people angry, the assassination of Charlie Kirk seems to have become the right-wing mirror to the death of George Floyd. He has been valorized and elevated almost to sainthood in a matter of less than 48 hours. Every author, many who are friends, have all rushed to say something about a man most of them paid little attention to just a couple of days ago.

I also don’t need to watch the videos, as some are demanding we do. I don’t need to watch to know they are vile events, especially the murder of Iryna. I learned this during the reporting of the 1995 trial of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka for the murders of Kristen French and other girls in the years prior. The reporting of the kidnapping, imprisonment and subsequent murders of the girls, how they were committed, written out in lurid details because the video recordings they made allowed for a kind of granular detail of the horrors, drew us all in at first. Then many of us became so sickened by it all that we just stopped. We couldn’t. Taking in the details of such evil has a corrupting influence on the soul. So, no, I don’t need to watch. It is enough to know that it happened.

Their deaths are no longer real events anymore, anyway. Maybe they are more real for us now because we live our lives in a sea of propaganda. Things we see in the mainstream media and on social media are those things which are now most real to us. They become part of “the discourse.” They are now “facts” in the strict way that Jacques Ellul explains them to be in The Political Illusion. Every day we are flooded with sensory inputs, things that we see, hear, taste, touch and smell. Not all of these inputs become “facts.” Many pass over us without notice. For something to become a “fact” for us, we must notice it. But then a transformation must take place if a personal “fact” is to become broadly accepted as a “fact.” It must be elevated such that the attention of the masses are fixated upon this thing. Once this kind of broad fixation occurs, it has now entered the discourse truly as a “fact.” Additionally, this “fact” remains politically useless, though, unless it is framed and given meaning.

This is important. When one “fact” comes to dominate the attention of the masses, other sensory data that might counter this accepted “fact” is rejected. A classic example of this is the deaths of young black men at the hands of police. Many people are murdered every day. But when attention is given almost exclusively to this one type of death, its importance grows in the minds of the masses. It becomes a “fact.” Any statistics that you might offer in opposition to the elevation and importance of this “fact” are ignored. Their truth is irrelevant. For all practical purposes they do not exist. The counter evidence is not a “fact” because it has not rooted itself in the consciousness of the mass. It does not exist. For practical, propaganda purposes, they are not “facts.” This is why the most important power that the dominant media outlets have is the power of selection. They choose for you that to which they want you to pay attention. They determine the “facts” for you by focusing your attention.

Now that something has been noticed, it must be framed. It must be set within a narrative. It must contribute to a story. It is this story that then drives political action. People serve “The Narrative.” If we pick up our “fact” in the example we just used, that is, our fixation upon white policemen killing young black men, we will notice that this is then given the framing that this is occurring because of racism, deep seated cultural and structural racism. This then becomes an integral part of “The Narrative” that then shapes the ground of what can and can’t be done politically. “The Narrative” shapes you slowly so that when the situation is right, you can then be activated to participate in political actions. You can be made to feel a certain way. You will answer the call to participate in a political rally or a demonstration. Maybe a riot. Perhaps something worse.

As the right has ascended, it has also grown in its ability to establish “facts” in the minds of a segment of the masses. It now also has a much greater ability to frame events. “Our guys” have also gotten much more skilled and energetic in their ability to act quickly, flood the zone, and set the terms and tone of the narrative. Even though the conventional media apparatus still dwarfs the right-wing and anti-leftist ecosystem, it now can assert a meaningful push back. More importantly, though, is it now has a much tighter and cohesive grip on what might broadly be called “the right.” Because of this, there is also a much greater mimetic pull. Whereas, at one time, the online right was characterized by so much diversity of opinion that people lamented that it was impossible to build any sort of political action, the opposite is now increasingly true. Everyone is now imitating everyone else. You must express the right amount of rage. You must make a public show of having the right feelings. You must post the correct images and memes. Much of it is like the sign that the grocer must put up in Vaclav Havel’s parable in The Power of the Powerless: “Workers of the World Unite!” Now the online right has developed the mimetic power to demand that you put up your sign if you want to be included among the faithful.

The strange thing is that I actually support the broad goal that “the left” specifically, and “liberalism” more broadly, needs to be defeated. I also am acutely aware that many of those who shriek the loudest about how awful the left is — and the left is awful — themselves hold to a basically liberal worldview even when they have other very conservative or right-wing ideas. Many hold both deep-seated Christian commitments while also maintaining essentially liberal ideas about economics and politics. For example, the idea of “the meritocracy” is essentially a liberal idea that was used to break down the older network of inherited power and wealth. Just because it had its heyday before the rise of DEI — which is built on the fundamental framework of merit, just with different criteria — does not make “the meritocracy” conservative or right-wing. Or is being “right-wing” just a way to keep “Progress” moving forward? Is “right-wing” merely “progressivism that works”? So when it is said that “the left” needs to be crushed, what do we actually mean by that? Or do we just resent that “our guys” have been excluded from power, wealth and prestige, and we want our turn at the trough? Rene Girard’s theories of mimetic desire and violence seem to be playing out across my time line and among my friends. I must acknowledge that I don’t disagree with them. In a lot of ways, my thinking is probably more radical than theirs. It is just that I am finding myself watching all of this with a weird sense of detachment.

One of the reasons that I don’t style myself as a revolutionary or a counter-revolutionary is that I know that as awful as “the system” is, and as terrible as our leadership class is, I can’t bring myself to advocate for us to “burn it all down.” I do not believe that doing so will usher in or make possible some new utopia. I don’t not believe that us seizing control of the system will make it all work the way the brochures tell us it is supposed to work. This is why I find myself oddly resisting the urge to join in the cavalcade of posts and articles — and yet, here I am, nonetheless, writing … contradictions abound — that are seeking to amp up the anger, focus it and direct it at “the enemy.” I am also resisting the urge to make Charlie Kirk or Iryna Zarutska into saints or some sort of condensed symbol. I am not convinced that the best way to honour them is by turning them into tools for propaganda.

This space that I am in might be the result of a recent recommitment to the discipline of prayer in my life. Sometimes life gets busy. I am not a monk in a monastery whose life revolves around prayer and worship. I have a family. A business practice. There are pressures that unfortunately can eat into prayer time. Being more deeply in this space, though, finding a greater degree of stillness before God these last few months, my first thought was that the correct response to these events is “repentance.”

Look at it this way: what if we were to win and defeat the left? What would happen? Would things just “magically” be fixed? Many, I believe, think so. Being the devout Calvinist that I am, I know better. Sin and evil will remain. Even beyond saying that getting rid of the left will not make sin disappear, are we willing to ask ourselves whether or not our prior commitments to modernity, to being a commercial and industrial society helped created the conditions that created a fertile environment for the left? I mean, these problems, and this political battle, has been with us since the 1700’s and intensified in the 1800’s and into the 20th century. Economic productivity and prosperity is the primary measure of political success in our society today. Are people producing and consuming at sufficient levels? There is little attention given to the spiritual wellbeing of our society. Will defeating the left solve the problem of nihilism?

This is why I am an advocate of building parallel communities with the capacity to resist as best they can both the punishments and the rewards of the current power structures. Many of us are all for resisting the punishments of the regime. We don’t want to wear the mask or get the shot. But what we really want is our fair shot at the rewards of the system. Because of this, the system owns us, controls us and keeps us complacent and cowed. Because we have not built the mechanisms for resistance, we are not capable of actual resistance. Real resistance begins when we have a reinforcing community around us that orders life around a different set of priorities than that of the regime system. That ordering principle, I believe, must come from a robust Christian faith that subordinates the economic — the rewards of the system — beneath a set of higher aspirations, most notably the desire to be close to God and our fellow man. The love of God and the love of neighbour supersedes all of these other concerns. To get from where we are now, to an embrace of a reordering of our moral and spiritual hierarchy, I believe means going through a period of repentance. In this we need to remind ourselves of Luke 13:1-4 …

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. ² Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? ³ I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. ⁴ Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? ⁵ I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

These events that are often so senseless and tragic, the result of evil in the world, should always remind us that the creation still remains under the judgement of God. Even though Christ won the decisive victory on the cross, we are still in a time when there is a spiritual battle waging across the world and across our society. Where does Jesus begin? With repentance. We need to begin with making ourselves right with God. This is not a one-time thing. It is a way of life. As it is phrased in Acts 10:18b, ours is a “repentance unto life.” This seems completely counterintuitive. We tell ourselves that we need to punish those who have made all of these evils possible. But before we take up the mantle of meting out God’s justice — or in a properly ordered society, even a sinful one, we would be able to count on the magistrate to fulfil their God given role in this facet of life — it would behoove us to answer the call of Jesus to repentance and to go as deeply in this as we can, moving towards ordering our lives under a proper moral and spiritual hierarchy. We must answer the question of nihilism with a robust and living faith. We need to be shepherding and discipling people so they can meet God. We need to be building in such a way that we are able to resist the punishments and rewards of the regime system.

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