Free Thought Struggles in a Society of Propaganda

by

       George Sontag

      Propaganda stifles free thought. Our education system has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought. The role of the educator is to teach young minds how to infer what actually happened from the any biased account of either side and to instill in them the awareness that everything in media today is one-sided and more or less untrue. That task is all the more urgent today, when the old role

of the newspapers televised news has been largely taken over by incessant opinion-streams, masquerading as facts, barraging us online and off with the false certainty of their respective version of reality posing as truth. One of the things that should be taught in schools must be the habit of weighing evidence, and the practice of not giving full assent to propositions which there is no reason to believe true. In most schools, we don’t have that.

   

       Yet the methods of increasing the degree of truth in our beliefs are well known; they consist in hearing all sides, trying to ascertain all the relevant facts, controlling our own bias by discussion with people who have the opposite bias, and cultivating a readiness to

discard any hypothesis which has proved inadequate. This distinction between truth and meaning is vital, especially today, as political propaganda and the “alternative facts” establishment manipulate a public that would rather know than think. The media elite prey on the desire for the certainty of instant meaning, among those unwilling to engage in the work of critical thinking necessary for arriving at real truth. They discard the idea that truth is measured by its correspondence with reality and not by its correspondence with one’s personal agendas, comfort zones, and preexisting beliefs.

We need to end that.

      Education should have two objects: first, to give definite knowledge — reading and writing, languages and mathematics, and so on, not nonsensical subjects that do nothing for the nation; secondly, to create those mental habits which will enable people to acquire knowledge and form sound judgments for themselves. Unfortunately our institutions are set up to impart information without imparting intelligence and designed not to give true knowledge, but to make the people pliable to the will of their masters. We need an education system that fosters critical thinking rather than conformity. Most don’t have that.

      The beginnings of political and cultural propaganda begins in elementary school, with the teaching of a history told by those in power, and results in the widespread manipulation of public opinion. Thought is not free and truth is obscured if all the arguments on one side of a controversy are perpetually presented as attractively as possible, while the arguments on the other side can only be discovered by diligent search. Sound bite propaganda appeals to emotion rather than reason. The objection to propaganda is not only its appeal to unreason, but still more the unfair advantage which it gives to the rich and powerful. Most don’t realize that.

      Education should have for one of its aims to teach people only to believe propositions when there is some reason to think that they are true. We must have, as Bertrand Russell called it, “the will to doubt” and extolled it as our greatest self-defense against propaganda. Our institutions do not teach this. They teach credulity, the readiness or willingness to believe, on slight or uncertain evidence. Credulity is a greater evil in the present day than it ever was before, because, owing to the growth of the Leftist conformity from our universities, it is much easier than it used to be to spread misinformation. The spread of misinformation is more important than ever to the holders of power. Most don’t see that.

      Thought is not “free” when penalties are incurred by

the holding or not holding of certain opinions, or by

giving expression to one’s belief or lack of belief on certain matters. The exorcising of a certain point of view which is happening on social platforms is a perfect example. Propaganda is not only untruths that are injected into the mainstream, it is also when real truth is left out. We ALL need to see that.