Propaganda

PROPAGANDA. - If certain truth (whether revealed, scientific or moral) conquers minds slowly and therefore requires dissemination and popularization, simple opinions that are in a hurry for success, and all the more so the less solidly founded they are, turn instead to propaganda. This term, once practically equivalent to the other two (dissemination, popularization), has currently rather declined in meaning and in good repute: both because of the abuse made of it, and because of its now characteristic indulgence in exaggeration, in the distortion of truth, in the light and ferocious denigration of whatever opposes it, without regard for the duties of charity, legitimizing all this with the demands of commercial or ideological struggle.

It is a multiform action (speech, oratory, press, posters, the novel, cinema, radio, theatre, choreographic displays, charity) that takes place in private or in public, with a tone for the most part coarse and simplistic, generally immodest, aimed at doing some kind of violence to the reasoning faculties, or at surprising and swaying them through the cunning exploitation of the psychology of the unwary, of the impressionable and of crowds.

Propaganda thus configured is therefore not suited to the works of intellect and virtue: whereas it is the ordinary instrument for promoting commercial products in competition, new medicinal specialties among the many similar ones, and particularly social and political opinions and ideologies: indeed, the term today spontaneously calls to mind the proselytism of political parties and trade-union bodies, while for commercial products and services one speaks rather of advertising and publicity (v.).

The law of competition reaches propaganda as well: hence in social and political dynamics, especially in electoral periods, propagandas are set against one another in rivalry with ever more showy, blatant and costly means. This is a cause of discredit for social and political activities, inasmuch as it makes them appear bound to whoever pays, at least for the most part, their huge and growing propaganda expenses.

Sound and moral ideas therefore cannot compete with the others on the terrain of propaganda, where effectiveness is entrusted solely to exaggerated and strange forms, to denigratory and defamatory gestures, or else threatening and scandal-mongering ones, the only ones capable of arousing curiosity and sensibility among the least educated, the least balanced and the least conscious. Sound and moral ideas must entrust themselves entirely to the instruction and elevation of the people, to the force of good example and to the evidence of good results in practical applications.

Mario Baronci