How Can Government Mind Manipulation Be Bad?

Posted by Thers, Whiskey Fire at 8:00 AM on April 25, 2008.

Over at Winds of Change, noted Internets savant Armed Liberal explains that people who dislike propaganda are great big sillyheads:

The usual suspects are going bonkers - bonkers! - over the notion that the Pentagon briefed a cadre of retired military men who served as 'expert commentators' in the media.

The thing is, you see, that we are involved in a "counterinsurgency" (against foes who include Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority, as AL explains in his comments -- I did not know that) and that therefore the American government really should be relentlessly evangelizing and radicalizing the American people for the purposes of crushing the mighty forces of Islamofascism:

So here's my problem. If we're engaged in counterinsurgency, public diplomacy and information warfare - which the insurgent side are very good at, spends a lot of time doing, and where the mainstream media only recently grudgingly backed away from the most egregious, falsified examples of their work - is a critical component, according to pretty much everyone who has written on the subject.

But - our government can't play. Not only are there legal restrictions, but the simple fact that information was given to commentators, bloggers, or reporters by the government - in the hopes that it can shape the information battlespace - is illegitimate, and is itself a major meta-story.

I don't think it's wrong to be concerned about the government shaping the news. I think it's necessary to shape perception as a part of any successful counterinsurgency.

But those two principles seem to be in a midair collision, and as a consequence it's going to keep raining aluminum.

It's true -- the forces arrayed against us are masters of manipulation. The amount of money that Al Qaeda pours into the MSM is staggering; they've clearly bought off the entire Washington Post editorial board, which explains why that wise body has consistently endorsed boneheaded policy ideas that have in the final analysis have done at least as much good for anti-American Islamicists as for anyone else, and probably more.

At any rate, while it is certainly tons of self-flattering fun to image oneself a heroic warrior of the "information battlespace," it might just be a bad idea in a democracy to ever try to "sell" a war at all. This is especially true when the reasons for the war are strategically incoherent, as they are in this instance, since that means you literally cannot make your case without heaping in entire steaming mounds of bullshit.

In other words, if you want a war and know perfectly well you can't convince anyone that it's a good idea unless you're dishonest about it, you probably should rethink your belligerence.

AL's airplane metaphor is illuminating. If take off knowing you're inevitably headed for a midair collision, you're kind of an idiot. And if you only figure out after you're in the air that the pilot got you on board under false pretenses and is deliberately aiming straight for a crash, wrestle away the controls and land the fucking plane.

The stuff he gets from his sources is likewise interesting:

It is as though we had entered some gladiatorial combat with helmet visor closed, sword dull and bent, and shield lying in the dirt. The United States, in particular, it is argued, possesses a ‘quagmire mentality’ which gifts its enemies with a playbook for its defeat....

Basically, if you need to target your base and find that it is fractured and lacks purpose, lacks the attention span for in-depth appeal to argument but is exquisitely sensitive to manipulation and possesses an innate mastery of semiotics then you have a problem. And if, moreover, your opponent’s base is unified, has a sense of purpose, a rich oral tradition which lends itself well to story-listening (and telling) and is fairly credulous when it comes to conspiracy theories then you have got a very serious problem.

This is of course insulting, and dare I say, "elitist." But besides that, it's incoherent on its own terms. If you decide to step into the arena with your visor closed, you have made an extremely dumb decision. (I'm also amused by the suggestion that Americans are sophisticates who are suspicious of "conspiracy theories," given that the whole purpose of Generalgate was to sell the American public on a conspiracy theory, and the entire Right Blogosphere still believes in this theory with every fiber of their being). 

But besides that, it reinforces the ridiculous, dangerous, but popular notion among neocons, neolibs, and neowingnuts that everything is a question of "willpower" and not of material reality. Why are we losing? Because we picked an unnecessary and unwinnable fight against sloppily defined opponents with no clear idea of what "victory" might in fact constitute? Hells no!

We was done in by the flightiness of the American people, who just didn't believe in the pony hard enough. We have met the enemy, and it is... semiotics.

These people are completely barking insane.

Tagged as: propaganda, war on terror

Thers runs Whiskey Fire.