Propaganda:
The Formation of Men's Attitudes
by Jacques Ellul
Customer Comments
actaeon@gateway.net from
Illinois, May 14, 1999
Wake-up call!
Like The
Technological Society, this book is a wake-up call. It portrays
the forces that are arrayed against us (humans) with chilling forthrightness.
This should be required reading for all students of the media, politics,
and anyone who wants to understand why and how such large numbers of people
can do and believe the crazy things we see every day.
A reader from Chicago, Illinois,
October 1, 1998
a must read
Though a tad difficult at times, especially
at the beginning, but definitely worth it. After reading, I will never
look at the mass media the same again. It truly amazing to see the techniques
described in the book at work. When I was in high school, and read Orwell's
1984,
I came away terrified. After reading this book, I was terrified even more,
as I realized such a horrid society is, in many important respects, a reality.
A reader from Tacoma, Washington,
September 11, 1998
Orwell's "1984" was fiction; Ellul's
"Propaganda" prophecy
Jacques Ellul is meticulous and thoughtful,
so this book is occasionally dense and hard to follow. In addition, most
of the examples and allusions will strike modern Americans as dated and
obscure. Nonetheless, Ellul saw long ago where moderns were headed. He
saw that authoritarian use of modern technologies would mesmerize, stultify,
and reduce humans to thralls, just as Orwell and Huxley, in far more hysterical
prose, had dramatized.
Orwell's electronic
miracles monitored citizens directly or indirectly. Huxley's
miracles were far more therapeutic or medical. But routine surveillance
or treatment is inefficient and overwhelms any state that would depend
on omniscience or envelopment. Ellul foresaw tools both electronic and
human that would so condition subject-audiences that close monitoring and
careful prescriptions would be unneeded.
Ellul also argued that this "Brave,
New World" could not but subvert democracy and decency. Once the
will of the citizen is not his or her own, then democracy in any meaningful
sense is at least devalued and perhaps transformed into reassuring internment.
Perhaps Ellul's most important insight was
that the educated believe themselves immune to propaganda when, due to
their proclivity for reading and watching news and other governmental outflow,
such "intellectuals" were actually far more vulnerable than masses who
did not receive propaganda as often.
So turn off the set and log off the internet
and settle in with a truly life-changing read.
A reader from Philadelphia,
PA, August 28, 1998
Thoroughly excellent scholarly discussion
of propaganda.
Jacques Ellul, famous French author describes
the incredible process of propaganda. Totally relevant in today's mind
numbing information processing society. Arguably one of the most informative
and concise books written on the subject. If you ever wondered what is
propaganda and why do you think like you do, this book may help explain
some of the difficulties in modern man's inherent thinking. The fact that
this comes from French soil and was written prior to the Ken Starr investigation
makes it all the more compelling.
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