I sincerely wish that everyone in America could experience this exhibit. I believe, if the exhibit is viewed openly and honestly, it has the power to make an individual question everything that they see, read or hear in the media, the arts, and in entertainment.
At the beginning of the exhibit there is a poster:
The words on the poster really made me stop and think. How much information am I exposed to on a daily basis that is designed to shape my opinion and behavior?
How often is the information shared via newspapers, television, radio and the internet using truths, half-truths, or lies? I've posted before about each of us having our own truth based on the world that we have experienced. How does the information you are viewing impact your truth? Is it aligned with your truth? Does it refute your truth? Are you more inclined to be skeptical if the information is aligned with your truth or in opposition to your truth?
Is information selectively omitted? If you read or watch different sources, you get different pieces of information. Why is the source omitting certain pieces? What narrative are they trying reinforce? What truth do they want you to embrace as your own truth?
How simple or complex are the discussions on the issues? Simplicity is very attractive, but very little is simple. The more simplistic and one dimensional the discussion, the less likely it is honestly presenting the issue as it really exists.
Is the information being presented in a way devised to provoke an emotional response? Emotions are wonderful, they make life rich and textured. But they are also dangerous in that our emotions can readily be used to manipulate us. What does the presenter of the information have to gain by soliciting your anger, your fear or your compassion? Does the emotion provoked override your ability to run the information past your logic filter? Any time information is presented in such a way as to provoke an emotional response, it should be filed away until the emotion recedes and the matter can be reviewed logically.
Is there an agenda being supported by the way the information is presented? Is the information being shared designed to make you feel strongly for or against and issue, or a country, or a political party, or a group of people? Any information designed to convince you of anything should be a red flag for the possibility of propaganda.
Are you hearing or reading information that denigrates a group of people, rather than highlights the strengths of a group of people? Conversely is one or another group of people or a person presented as a savior? Are issues laid out clearly, in non-emotional language, or are they presented as A is good and B is bad? You are an intelligent thinking being. You are capable of sorting through facts and analyzing what is best for you in your situation, and how that differs from what may be best for others in different situations. Challenge what you hear and read that wants to convince you. Sort out the facts.
The last bullet point is the hardest. How do you know that the information has been tailored for your consumption, so that the propaganda has an insidious impact on your thinking?
I can only implore you to be vigilant.
I have heard many times, and wondered many times how the Holocaust could have occurred. I have wondered where the good people were. Why they failed to speak out. What I learned in the propaganda exhibit at the World War II Museum is that the skillful use of message, and messaging, and targeting can sway public opinion.
It is not that good people did not exist. Good people's fears and anger were exploited, and then their survival depended on looking away from the atrocities, or simply pretending the atrocities were not happening.
And it wasn't just the news that was shaping public opinion. It was movies and music, too. Films were called documentaries that were really fiction designed to shape public opinion.
I actually visited the exhibit twice, because I wanted to process what I had learned and then be exposed to it again. I came away after the second visit even more convinced that I am vulnerable to being influenced by a skilled propaganda campaign, and I believe we all are.
Any time too many voices want me to believe the same thing, any time someone uses emotions to try to convince me to see things their way, I need to make sure my defenses are in place, and my logic filter is robust.
Propaganda is real. It is not a tool that was once used that is now defunct. Skilled propagandists shape your opinions, your truth and your reality without your knowledge if you let your guard down.
Be vigilant. Be skeptical. Our humanity depends on us doing that.
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