~~ Transitioning from the Language of Advertising
to the Language of Propaganda ~~

The border police's german shepherd-
is a sympathetic dog.
I am her friend-
I can pat her and pet her.
but I am sure that she will be nasty to any enemies
RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA POSTER

Studying the language of advertising, we've been studying the language of persuasion. It's not the language of rational argument. It's not persuasion based on clear thinking and logic. We've been looking at the language that persuades by manipulation, the language that reaches out to our emotions, plays on our fantasies, fears, desires.

You noticed in the ads you analyzed how advertisers bend language, distort it by using weasel words, euphemism, or just plain goofy nonsense. Anything to arrest our attention, make us pause and enjoy the image, the feeling. The language of advertising is a language that powerfully (whether we want to realize it or not) engages our emotions and diverts our critical intelligence until we are willing to base our consumer decisions on "feelings" rather than any specific evidence that one product is indeed objectively superior than another. We've allowed advertising to interrupt rational, critical thinking. But by studying these issues, hopefully we've begun to erect some defenses against its relentless efforts. I'm encouraged by the essays you wrote, and I think you all have begun to erect those necessary defenses.

But the persuasion doesn't stop with advertising.

Now we're turning the page and we're going to scrutinize another kind of language that surrounds us daily-especially in election years or during massive military action-as you may have been noticing lately. I'm speaking, of course, about the language of politics, which, like advertising, is everywhere. Just like the language of advertising, we're going to see how the language of politics is also flexible and ambiguous, sometimes (in the case of propaganda) rich and arresting-it's definitely purposeful and edited. The result of its use is all too often the same kind of bent, distorted truth and hopeless illusion we've been fed by advertising. Political language tells us what we want to hear, plays on our emotional weak points or hot spots. It's a language to be wary of, to study, to think critically about, to maintain a healthy skepticism over. It's a language that often blurs the truth by being so vague or general as to be practically meaningless. As the writers of "How To Detect Propaganda" declare, socially beneficial language will never suffer by our scrutiny-but the disastrous, socially harmful type must be exposed for the evil it really is! (I'm paraphrasing.)

It's important to study the way politicians speak because they represent the language of POWER. As a result of what politicians say, and think, and do-as a result of their powers of persuasion-things get done-important things. NATO drops bombs, peace prevails as a result of a summit meeting, social programs are funded or reformed or made extinct, budgets are passed, and billions of dollars are being spent one way rather than another. Political language is Power with a capital P.

And political language, as we'll learn, is shifty, just like the language of advertising. At worst, just like the language of advertising, it seems to serve the needs of its maker, not the needs of its hearer. It serves the needs of the politician, the party, the movement, the one seeking power, seeking re-election; it thrives on its users ability to make it pliable, flexible, and ambiguous. It's evasive, euphemistic, avoiding responsibility and accountability. "Unintended buildings were hit. Collateral damage was done." That doesn't sound too very terrible, certainly not as bad as "U.S. airplanes bombed and destroyed a Red Cross building in Afghanistan which housed humanitarian workers and critical food supplies."

A wholly cynical perspective of the political process sees politicians engaged in the act of selling themselves. But let's give people the benefit of the doubt and recognize that it's not always that bad. Even so, let the buyer beware. Once you begin to look into this, you may feel you need to arm yourself against weasely sales tactics.

When political language ceases to be straightforwardly informative about its record of service or its plan for service-when it ceases (or never begins) to explain ideas, policies, proposals, vision—when it, instead, seeks to influence its audience's beliefs or change its behavior using bald emotion, propaganda is in the air.