No Stupid Questions

No one, including you, is immune to propaganda.

Critical thinking is a skill that requires teaching and practice. If children are not given that preparation they won't have that skill in adulthood. That's why authoritarian governments care so much about controlling and/or limiting access to proper education.

I think this USSR quote is a good answer:

We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.

(Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

In any authoritarian system where indoctrination starts young you'll probably have a fifth of the population that's high on the coolaid or never questioned anything due to ideology or intelligence (or both). The rest know they're lying, etc. And keep their mouths shut because they don't want to go to Siberia or El Salvador.

Propaganda, is a craft, it’s a whole world of tricks and manipulations. Not just censorship and positive stories about the leaders. It can get shockingly sophisticated. We usually only take note of the obvious and obtuse propaganda.

People aren’t dumb for believing it, it’s a whole field of figuring out how to convince people about things. Often if the propaganda doesn’t work on you, that’s because it’s not designed for you, or it has worked but the goal of it wasn’t what you thought it was.

Critical thinking has to be taught in order for a person have it. And when you either restrict/limit education (for example, making it so that one needs a lot of money for proper schooling, thus barring lower classes from getting the education they need) or alter the education to become indoctrination. (These methods are most efficient combined!) It's why authoritarian people and parties want to control and/or destroy education systems so bad.

Being a history nerd, I've been convinced that the vast majority of people can be tricked into believing nearly anything. No one is immune to propaganda, it's just a matter of circumistances and the education you receive.

If you had grew up in a society where everyone told you that, say, pigs are a type of lizard, and your school taught you that pigs are lizards, all biologists were bribed or forced into saying pigs are lizards, and all the books you read and all the movies or shows you watched said pigs are lizards, chances are that you would believe pigs are lizards.

I'd also like to note that the above scenario would work especially well if you had never actually spent time with pigs. For example, it's a lot easier to convince someone that gay people are evil if they don't personally know any gay people.

I also think that often people know that, for example, elections are fraudulent, but they are too scared to say anything and thus act like they aren't.

Critical thinking is a skill, not an inborn gift. You may end up better at it than someone else by virtue of some as-yet-unknown genetic or epigenetic factor, but only if you both learn the skills and practice them.

Worse, even with learning and practice everyone fucks up at least a little. Even if the only place they fuck up is thinking that because they have the skill and practice that they can't fuck up.

We're all fucking meat bags filled with hormones and chemicals. That shit will override every bit of common sense and critical thinking that's ever existed. Not every time, but eventually, and more than once in your life.

Propaganda is only propaganda if you aren't part of the institution generating it. If you're a random asshole in fascistan, or whatever, chances are that the propaganda is just noise, the same way commercials or waves crashing are. There's no need to think critically if all you want to do is coast and get by.

So they "believe" it in roughly the same way that people believe if they work hard, they can achieve anything they want. Even if they know better, what's the alternative? Seeing reality and still being stuck in the same place? Nah, even the ones that have practiced thoroughly aren't fucking around most of the time. Why would they bother if they apply that critical thinking and realize nobody really gives a fuck as long as they aren't too hungry, and the worst stuff is happening in some letter town? They wouldn't. It's too fucking depressing.

Also, you assume that critical thinking can overcome a lack of information. The "news" is always the news. If you have no other sources of data, critical thinking doesn't apply until something contradicts that news. If you control what people see and hear, you control the people. There won't be enough opposition to matter, if you've set up your regime right.

The average person has lots of critical thinking.

It's just not a life hack to truth. You can critical think yourself into any conclusion. The average person uses critical thinking to reinforce their biased instead of challenge them.

Obedience doesn't come exclusively from lack of understanding of the whole picture. Besides propaganda there is also brutal enforcement. Those who are aware of the situation are swiftly brought back to their place by force if they try anything funny. Many people are aware, but they cannot show it, and it's near impossible to cooperate with others at this stage.

The thing about propaganda that's often overlooked is the fact that it isn’t just about controlling what people think - it’s about controlling what people think other people think.

I think the real problem is, people don’t know how to manage their emotions, and those end up swaying them left and right. Opportunistic antagonists will take advantage of those triggers.

Stop thinking with with your gut, take a pause to analyze your body response to emotions. Are you sweating? Are you afraid or is it actually warm? If you’re afraid, what specifically do you fear? Etc.

Propaganda, echo chambers, peer pressure, and even vicious cycles of self-pity, anger, sadness… will have a weaker hold on you.

Feel, but don’t stop thinking.

It's so nice of you to tell us what would you do and how you'd behave in an hypothetical situation that you have never been nurtured and raised on, and how good you'd do facing it under your current morals and mental framework that may or may not be available during that situation

Good times, critical thinking was had by all

Do people in authoritarian countries actually just eat the propaganda?

They surely do in the USia, why wouldn't they do it in other countries. It is only takes to convince third of a population but it has to be the loud third to maintain power in a modern "Democracy"

Do people in authoritarian countries actually just eat the propaganda? To what extent do they believe the propaganda?

Where I come from? Not much, but part of that is because the lies are so obvious and in conflict with people's lived experience that you can't even delude yourself into accepting them.

No, the average person does not have critical thinking. You are correct.

Do you believe in religion? Do you believe in any home remedies? Do you eat the same foods you grew up with?

It's a very rare person that questions literally everything and logically analyzes why they think what they think.

I'd be very skepical and deduce that there is censorshop going on and the offical news could be exaggerated or entirely falsified

After you realise you are a hostage, what's the "good" response, in your opinion? Protest and get surpressed? Start a partisan group, and be afraid for your life 24/7? Join the surpressors for small benefits for your and yours, at the peril of others? Play along with the idea to "change it from the inside"?

The concept of "the average person" is a good example of the type of crass generalisation that propagndists often use.

Yes.

Propaganda doesn't necessarily need to convince people, but can instead attack the peoples ability to differentiate truth and lie by sowing mistrust about the most mundane and conventional things. When people stop believing their own eyes or following logic, they become easier to manipulate. A bit like gas-lighting, where you sort of turn the critical thinking against them, but on a large scale.