Artful Dodging – how they do it

Propaganda and the art of convincing the public to believe what you want them to, or to help yourself believe what you want to, has a very long history. The Golden Age Of Artful Dodging provides an overview.

“Here’s a list of the most common, and successful, techniques currently in use. If you spend any time at all consuming mass media, you will find these techniques familiar. That in itself is scary, but you decide.”

22 techniques in the list and that just covers the most commonly used.

“There are many other techniques, as the last century has been a golden age for this sort of duplicity. The Internet has accelerated the development of new techniques because the web tends to shorten the useful life of these media scams. “

One of the ways to avoid being lead astray is to be able to recognize these techniques in use. Most of the time it is rather blatant, such as name calling or over-humanization. At the very least, by knowing the techniques, you can put pressure on those trying to use them to be more creative and more subtle. The real difficulty is that those using them often do so as a matter of psychological defense rather than as planned propaganda program. They may not even be aware of what they do. That can be a warning for you – examine your own arguments for these techniques and use what you find to learn about yourself.