As I prepare a study guide for Session 7 on Jacques Ellul's book Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, I plan to offer supplements to aid in readers' understanding of the material. I'd love your feedback on the video below, produced by "The Academy of Ideas." This video provides lots of great content, but I fear it gets off to a bad start by citing Howard Zinn as though he's a respectable source. Indeed, the initial quote by Zinn makes a lot of sense in the same way that the Nazi propagandist Goebbels' writing on propaganda made sense: "repeat the lie over and over again and people will believe it." Keep in mind that Zinn's writing in general is steeped in identity politics and political correctness--two prime ingredients of the weaponization of loneliness.
So I offer this caveat going forward: Let's beware of actual propagandists who claim to know everything about how propaganda works but have a hidden agenda. These folks are proliferating today with the goal of ending free speech under the guise of protecting us from "misinformation." (Another example is Jason Stanley whose book "How Propaganda Works" has ZERO references to the most authoritative and scholarly source on that topic: Jacques Ellul.)
I think if you voice your misgivings, that's very helpful to those of us with less experience. Maybe give a little background on people that are cited or mentioned, so we know to read or watch with caution. For example, I'm working on a reading list that includes works by somebody involved in the occult and freemasonry, so I put a sticker on the book with that warning, mainly because my memory is absolutely awful, but also to prevent my kids from reading it without knowing that.