Propaganda: when brains march in formation and song

The state cannot leave the brains of its citizens alone. The state, like religion, has its own system of values, which it systematically instills in everyone, using education, media, culture, science... It does this, simultaneously punishing and encouraging... The whole arsenal is in action. The rigidity of the state in establishing its view of the world awakens more ancient instincts of repeating behavior in order not to stand out in the crowd...

At the same time, this is a fairly rational process. Having vaccinated it once, you can then switch to the “renegades” who somehow turned out to be closed from the “vaccination”. People of one such humanitarian “vaccination” can talk to each other without even noticing it. They're just on the same wavelength...

In principle, such behavior is the key to survival in society. And we are under this kind of social pressure all the time. We watch the same films, dress in the same fashion, read the same books, the same media... We are them, and they are us... Social networks have added even more external pressure on us, but more subtle, because the newspaper "Pravda" “It was possible not to read, but familiar sites always become mandatory, since they are more in line with our interests, since they are read by our friends, and not strangers.

Such unanimity has always worked especially seriously in established totalitarian states and in those who are still building similar systems in their country. Daily and hourly corrections are made in them by the media. If required, they can introduce new information "tunes" that everyone needs to know. States increase the dissemination of the necessary information, thereby it becomes an established fact, binding on everyone. And arguing with the state is more expensive.

V. Mayakovsky wrote about the loner in poetry, by the way, about the party, that is, about another propaganda mechanism:

It's bad for a person

when he's alone.

Woe alone,

one is not a warrior -

every hefty one

him master

and even the weak

if two.

In principle, no state will love heretics. The principle of economy of effort does not allow him to do this, since it complicates control. The greater the variety, the more difficult it is to manage. A heretic is a creature who interferes with the introduction of correct unanimity. And any living organism is configured to save its efforts: be it a state or a person.

Through his activities, Stalin, manipulating fear, introduced stress and thereby blocked incorrect, and from his point of view, even hostile behavior. Stalin has long been in the minds of both the population and the leaders, who still have him in the back of their minds.

A. Sinyavsky saw the origins of this approach in the figure of Lenin: “it was Lenin who prepared Stalin’s rise to power. He prepared it by excluding all democracy, including party democracy. And, being a democratic intellectual by nature, Lenin essentially prohibited discussions within the party and outside her. Lenin brought all government administration to Lenin himself, not caring that tomorrow Stalin would sit in his place. Lenin’s terror and Lenin’s centralization of power quite naturally led to Stalin" (Sinyavsky A. Fundamentals of Soviet Civilization. - M., 2002 )

People, with rare exceptions, are conformists. They behave as expected of them. They read signals, for example, from authorities or superiors at work, in order to behave in the desired way. In a separate group we can observe examples of counter-behavior when autonomy arises there. This is exactly how things stood in Kazan youth gangs, to which the film “The Boy’s Word” attracted attention. But they also repeated the behavior, although not the one that was imposed on them from above.

S. Asch did such experiments when a person adjusted to previously expressed opinions, for example, when determining the length of a segment. This was the role of a group with dummy members: “As the group increases, the tendency towards conformity increases. However, the dependence according to the updated data looks somewhat more complicated. The tendency towards conformity is stronger in a group of 6-7 members; further increase in the group, the level of conformity levels out and even decreases. How Asch believed, in a larger group, subjects gradually begin to doubt the sincerity of its members and think about the conspiracy of the participants to exert pressure. Having realized such features, people begin to resist the pressure "( Kopets L. Experiments of Solomon Asch. Conformity ; see also Kleinman P. Solomon Asch on conformity ; see also Yudkovsky E. Asch's experiment on conformity ; Kozlenko O.S. Conformity: the influence of a group on an individual. Experiments by M. Sherif and S. Asch ; Berkhin I. Conformism, the “spiral of silence”, the value of freaks for society and the Stanford experiment) .

We are not loners, but people of the system. Our survival requires constant consideration of its actions: both physical and informational. We must never fall out of the invisible "order" so as not to fall under the distribution. It turns out that the more invisible we are, the better. Some types of professions, on the contrary, are built on being different from others. These are creative professions where, on the contrary, creativity is valued, that is, the element of “non-repetition” is allowed.

The so-called Russian “naked party”, which was hit by the authorities, brought together precisely people whose profession is creative behavior. To be noticed by both the audience and the media, they need to stand out. Our attention reacts to something different, not to repetition. There was even a joke on this topic: Due to the higher ratings, “The Naked Party” will be shown on the Old New Year, and not “Blue Light”.

And one more interesting deviation from the classic experiment: “Ash conducted his experiments with slight variations. For example, in some cases, one of the seven assistants gave the correct answer. And the result immediately changed: under these conditions, only 5% of the subjects agreed with the opinion of the group. Obviously, even a single ally was enough to stay true to one's opinion, resist group pressure, and not conform. This finding was confirmed by later research" ( Solomon Ash Experiment )

We all have different goals. Some people want to dominate, while others want a quiet life. But the state seeks from us the same political goals, which should arise from the same picture of the world in our heads. For the state, the sameness of us is the most important thing, because it simplifies management. Diversity is much more difficult to manage.

Even stereotypes on social networks can be the same: each one has its own. For example, there is this fact: “It turned out that the total mass of stereotypes about Jews varies depending on the social network. “Facebook users are likely to learn that Jews control the world. On “X” (formerly Twitter) they will read that Jews obsessed with money. And YouTube is a place for conspiracy theories about the mythical “Synagogue of Satan,” Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, founder and executive director of CyberWell, told Details" ( Boltyanskaya N. Artificial intelligence will help shut the mouths of anti-Semites ).

Propaganda is a great helper in forging the desired identity. Our individuality is not as interesting to the state as our common identity. And if not everyone reads newspapers, then films represent the same lever of influence on mass consciousness as television news, only not in the informational, but in the virtual plane. Visual presentation of information defeats any other. It is always easier to understand because it is “ancient”.

We will have to recognize such propaganda as quasi-forceful, since no one can evade it, and anyone who demonstrates disagreement will get hit on the head. This toolkit was embodied in the idea of ​​Russian foreign agents. They are thereby forced to remain silent rather than speak. The foreign agent is gradually becoming in the head an analogue of the “enemy of the people” of the Soviet era. And they begin to flee abroad, which is probably how it was intended. After all, if a person is sent to jail, it will cause more noise than his escape abroad

Propaganda is such a conductor of public life. It is not only in the media, but also in universities, and even came to school. Its function is one - to close the way to a different opinion. There is an anecdote that can be directly attributed to propaganda: there are two opinions - mine and the wrong one... That is, these two opinions in our case will be the propaganda opinion and the wrong one.

The world is diverse, and we always need its interpretations... And now the right to a correct interpretation is usurped by state leaders from the state. What does the man on TV, for example, V. Soloviev, do? Interprets, and always correctly... Briefly, but bloody...

For example, about NATO exercises: “I want this scenario to be very short. They concentrate, and we destroy everyone with nuclear weapons. And don’t tell me about their peaceful ones! They directly talk about the destruction of Russia, they collect for this NATO, they must understand: we will not play with them!” ( “They want to destroy us”: propagandist Solovyov threw a tantrum over large-scale NATO exercises )

This is a certain political stage... Pop propagandists maintain the necessary intensity of passions, which is required for officials... Only such propaganda “shouts” can capture the mass consciousness, and propaganda “whispers” will not fulfill such tasks.

In his opinion, the West is going to enter the war... V. Solovyov shouts: “They will give everything they can to Ukraine. They will give everything. And in 1.5 years they will fire up their factories. And they will gather an army. And when the current one ends stage, if necessary, they themselves will enter the war. There is no need for any illusions" (Timchenko O. “Gathering military power”: propagandist Soloviev tried to scare the Russians that the West would start a war against Russia )

Soloviev is actively spreading lies: “Ukrainians are killing their own civilians in order to frame Russia; the British are responsible for the mass death of civilians in Butch, because the name of the city is consonant with the English word “butcher” (“butcher”); the United States intends to destroy Russia and confiscate its nuclear weapons ; the poisonings of Sergei Skripal and Alexei Navalny were staged by the West as provocations, in order to then blame Russia for it" ( Faces of Kremlin propaganda: Vladimir Solovyov ).

Solovyov was accused that his son was not in a hurry to join the army, but was working in a London modeling agency (The British The Sun published material about Solovyov’s son, where he was spotted in one of the gay clubs in London, where an orgy took place . Journalists learned that the eldest son of Vladimir Solovyov works as a model in London . However, a check of this fact, made including by Newsweek, did not confirm this information. It turned out to be another Soloviev ( Fact Check: Is Putin Ally's Son Dodging Ukraine Draft as Model in London?; Titov A. Gay Club , same-sex marriage and the London modeling business: checking recent posts about the son of Vladimir Solovyov ).

But Solovyov inside himself still loves the West more than Russia: according to the latest data, five villas have already been found in him in Italy, and where else could the main propagandist live... ( “Important Stories” found another house for the family of TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov in Italy ). And the TV presenter, in response, joyfully declared them Nazis: “Soloviev accused the European authorities of Nazism and anti-Semitism. “I have no questions for these Nazi bastards. They are Nazis. First, they deprive Jews like me of property in Italy. We, the Jews, have no get used to the way the European Nazis deprive us of our property" ( The propagandist Solovyov found a fifth villa in Italy ). The Italian authorities seized all this wealth after the start of the war in Ukraine.

And the kind owner of the villas, Vladimir Solovyov, expressed his version of purchasing real estate on the shores of the Italian Lake Como. He bought them... because they were cheap: “Yes, I bought property abroad and I advise you if you can afford it. It’s cheaper than buying a dacha somewhere here, near some of our warm seas. Listen, when I look at the prices in Crimea or Sochi, I understand that it’s cheaper in Italy” (see “Soloviev justified himself for buying villas in Italy”).