How propaganda works: the ruse of Hegelian Dialectic
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"each crisis is 'an opportunity' to have develop out of this tragedy a new world order".
-- George W. Bush invoked the new world order at several critical junctures.
Articles linked
- The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)
"... as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (p. 211) - Gilbert Keith Chesterton, poet and essayist
"both capitalism and communism rest on the same idea: a centralization of wealth which destroys private property."
Although he never used the terms himself, the triad thesis, antithesis, synthesis is often used to describe the thought of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) .
Modern propaganda is based mainly on this Hegelian dialectic: the invention of artificial extremes ("thesis'' and "antithesis'') which superficially conflict with each other, and the synthesis from that conflict of a goal, which is made to appear to be the product of consensus.
The artificial extremes are chosen and propagandized (marginalizing the population) in such a way that the goal is "naturally" synthesized from them. It is, essentially, a trick - a fraud. It is a strategy of ideological divide-and-conquer. The dialectic ruse dissipates the energy and coherency of its targets - unless they recognize the ruse as such.
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William F. Torpey says:
2 years ago
While the definition of "the big lie" varies, depending on your source, the propaganda tool you discuss here is just that! It's exactly how we got into Iraq, and it's exactly why we're headed for a similar escapade into Iran. Great information!