The Triumph of the Battleship Potemkin

The origin of the word propaganda is Pope Gregory XV who used the word to mean the dissemination of information. If we were to accept this definition then everything intended to reach masses of people should be labeled propaganda. However; the term propaganda now has a negative connotation due to WWI and the rise of imperialistic states in the 20th century including Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Two of the most notable pieces of propaganda to come out of these empires are the films The Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925, Soviet Russia) and Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1935, Nazi Germany). Propaganda is often defined to be “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person” and while these films are noted as some of the greatest examples of propaganda in history, are they truly necessary (Merriam-Webster)? Do they truly help Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia?
No, these films are cannot truly be called necessary because ultimately they were simply reinforcement. In 1925 Soviet Russia change from the Tsarist regime had already been occurring for years with the New Economic Policy and the masses were able to see changes in their way of life before The Battleship Potemkin was released. It is true that Lenin’s death in 1924 had caused a power struggle, however; this struggle stayed mostly within the Soviet Party and most people were not directly affected until Stalin commenced his Five Year Plans in 1927. Lenin was already actively changing the system that people were so unhappy with prior to the film’s release and The Battleship Potemkin was ultimately a reinforcement of the idea that the Bolsheviks were the heroes of Russia. The film cannot stand on its own; it was the actions of the Bolsheviks that convinced the population that change was coming so the film was not necessary and would have been pointless had the Bolshevik’s actions been ineffective.
This is also true in Nazi Germany. Prior to the release of Triumph of the Will; Hitler had already demonstrated to the German people that change was arriving by his rejection of the Treaty of Versailles. The masses were already glad of the actions that Hitler was taking and so the film was simply an attempt to reinforce the positive attitudes towards Hitler. However; this reinforcement would not pointless if people would not have already seen Hitler as a positive change. As WWII progressed and conditions became worst in Nazi Germany many people become disenchanted with Hitler and no amount of propaganda could change that attitude. This suggests that propaganda can only be used as reinforcement. It will only be effective if conditions are viewed as positive and thus propaganda cannot stand on its own.
A more modern example of this can be seen with a McDonald’s commercial. If you have had a Big Mac prior to seeing the commercial and found it disgusting the commercial would not make you want to go and buy one. However; if you loved the taste of a Big Mac and saw the commercial then you would be more likely to see the commercial and desire a Big Mac. Ultimately the commercial will only work on audiences that already favor the product while being infective towards audiences who do not. This same principle can be noted with Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. If there had been no positive action by the governments in power then the films would have been completely ineffective. Thus propaganda is useless in trying to convince someone who is of the opposing view, but can be useful in reinforcing positive feelings of someone already convinced.

propaganda. (2009). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
Retrieved October 12, 2009, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/propaganda

Foot-in-the-door technique and propaganda in Nazi Germany

In 1933, Adolf Hitler gained official control of Germany following a win in that year’s elections (Wistrich, 1997). Hitler’s control involved creating a “master race” of people and eliminating those who’s appearances and ideas strayed from the characteristics of this race. The major target to eliminate in Nazi Germany was the Jewish community. How did one man convince a vast majority of a population to support the destruction of another group?

He understood the foot-in-the-door phenomenon/technique and applied it to his cause. The foot-in-the-door phenomenon/technique works by convincing “people to comply to a critical request by first obtaining COMPLIANCE to a minor request” (Manstead, & Hewstone, 1999). He used a long series of requests presented in the media to the German people until he got the result he was looking for. His idea was that there was only one “master race”, and the other races were holding this one back. He needed to remove or annihilate these “lesser races”. And what was the first request?

Hitler needed the German people to first believe that the Jewish people were bad. The Jewish people have committed an evil act against the German nation just by existing and taking up jobs and other precious resources. Once this is completed, which wasn’t difficult to do due to the economic turmoil Germany was left in following WWI, then he had to convince the people of Germany that the Jewish people should be shunned by them. Boycotts of Jewish shops are instigated, and Jewish students are no longer allowed to attend school (Timeline). He enforced laws forcing Jews to wear a yellow badge bearing the Star of David and the word “Jude”. These actions made a clear distinction between the Jewish people and the rest of Germany. After these actions, it wasn’t difficult to keep the “German citizens” from opposing the internment of hundreds of thousands of Jews, and other minorities, in concentration camps.

Hitler made large use of the media to convince the German people that his beliefs should be theirs. Magazines, newspapers, radio, television (occuring later for those able to afford it), and public speeches were filled with anti-Semitism. This massive amount of propaganda aided in changing the beliefs of an entire nation. If the media hadn’t been as available and had Germany not been suffering major economic hardships, then it is possible that Hitler would not have become as powerful as quickly if he were able to become powerful at all.

There are ways of avoiding this in the future. People need to be educated on persuasion and the techniques used. They need to be able to recognize what is happening so they may predict a future event. If the German people had seen that Hitler was actually changing their beliefs in such a way earlier on in his dictatorship, then there may have been more opposition and a possible overthrow of the government.

Citations

Manstead, A.S.R., & Hewstone, M. (1999). Foot-in-the-Door.
The Blackwell encyclopedia of social psychology. Oxford,
U.K. ; Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers.

Timeline. Compiled from various, unspecified sources. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Chronology_1933.html

Wistrich, R.S. (1997). Who's who in nazi germany. Retrieved from http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler.html

War junkies

Addiction is defined as being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming. From the time man crafted their first tools there has been conflict. The first ever recorded war was c. 2700B.C. (http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr0004.htm). This primal action has been repeated so much by man that it has become imprinted into our vary genes. Humans have become addicted to war. So much use over such a long time has caused humans to see war as a constant threat. Because war is always thought of by humans, it is always effecting humans. We are like a junkie, constantly thinking about when we will get our next supply, although instead of anticipation, fear is the usual response.

So why are people addicted to war? As like most junkies, there is a certain "high" offered with war. Adrenalin will pump as war campaigns are fought and propaganda is spread across the home-fronts. The mentality of the country becomes focused on the war above all else. Not much different from a junkie experiencing a long awaited high. A junkie also believes that they "need" their drug. Countless wars have been fought based on "need". In the case it is not war itself people are addicted to, but what war offers. Prizes and comfort for the winner. No country goes to war expecting to lose just as no junkie expects to get a dose of their respected drug that proves to be lethal, but it does happen.

Another interesting fact about addiction is that, over time, a tolerance is built up. More and more of the drug is needed each time to experience a "high". This will inevitably lead to an overdose, which is potentiality lethal to the junkie. From the first recorded war, the size war and the effort put in by the countries behind them have grown exponentially. Medieval wars never saw more than tens of thousands dead, during the 17th and 18th century, wars may have had a million dead. The World came close to "overdose" in the early 20th century with WWI and WWII. More than 100,000,000 total deaths occurred during and because of these wars. However as with other junkies, the world did not kick its habit, but merely lowed its dose. Thus the cycle starts again.

Viewing war as an addiction, it is possible to treat it. Going cold turkey would be the best route; however this would bring "withdrawals" in the form of heavy tension between the countries after a while. People could learn to wean themselves off of war, but this would still require war to exist, thus deaths would occur. It is unsure the route needed to break humans of this primal addiction, but with the possibility of another "overdose" occurring, a solution is needed fast.

Propaganda (Blog 2)

Propaganda is used to persuade people to someone's viewpoint, and has been used in virtually every war. It gives us the reason to go off and kill other people. Propaganda designates one side as good and pure, the hero's of the other country they are about to face. Their opponents are cast as evil, viscious, malignant, and deserving of death. Of course on the side of the opposition, the roles are reversed. However, rarely are the true motives for going off to war revealed to the population at large.

Freedom and War

The American Revolution, The War of 1812, The Civil War, The Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, The Korean War, Desert Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. These wars all have one thing in common, they are wars that the United States either started or became involved with, in the name of “freedom”. The United States military casualties of just those wars listed amount to over 1.2million. A ridiculously high cost for a concept with such a subjective definition. In the summer of 2007 a met a boy named Philip Kwii, we were taking a class in Philosophy and in that class we were required to write down what freedom meant to us. Once we finished writing down our individual definitions of freedom, we were instructed to switch papers and do a peer review. I had written something abstract about the state of nature and absolute freedom. My friend Philip had written about chewing gum. Philip was from Singapore, and in Singapore chewing gum is banned. What I discovered that day was the radically different definitions of freedom people have and often times what we truly believe to be freedom, that light at the end of the tunnel, is something we feel we have been unjustly denied.

This leads to one popular definition of freedom. Freedom as the non-restriction of options (Parent, 1974). The definition of freedom as the non-restriction of options is more of an outline built to encompass the many varying personal definitions of freedom that exist around the world. For example, in my friend Philip's case, he would achieve freedom if the leadership of Singapore lifted the ban on chewing gum, no longer restricting his option to chew gum.. In the case of the southern states, freedom was the option to secede from the United States and form the Confederate States of America and establish their own, separate set of rules.

Conflicts arise when one persons definition of freedom impedes another persons definition of freedom. For example, Philip wants to be able to chew gum, but Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew wants the streets of Singapore to be free of sticky discarded chewing gum. Conflict will ensue, and the weaker power (Philip) is forced to yield to the stronger power (in this case Prime Minister Yew). The same concept applies to nations, or even rebellious groups as was the case in the American Revolution when the United States (then 13 British Colonies) felt that their freedoms were being compromised by what the British thought were their freedoms. Conflict escalated to war, Britain was repelled, and 13 rebellious colonies became the United States of America.

To understand freedom we must first try to understand perspective. Hopefully, during that undertaking we will begin to understand the reasons behind other people's aggression. Through that understanding maybe, someday, we can avoid conflict all together. Remember, not even Hitler viewed himself as the bad guy.


Citations

Lee, R. "The History Guy: Casualties From America's Wars"
http://www.historyguy.com/american_war_casualties.html

Parent, W. A. (1974). Freedom as the Non-Restriction of Options . Mind, New Series, 83(331), Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2252746

propoganda

Recently we have been studying propoganda, and I will mostly be referencing our course readings. I wonder whether propoganda is avoidable or not. Or whether it should be avoided at all. As we have seen in our reading, it is virtualy impossible to purge our lives of propoganda. It is therefor our responsibility to make informed descisions about the propoganda we endure.

informed descision making is a bit of a complex construct. First we must understand exactly what is being said to us and why it is being said. If we understan that, we can theoreticly find the truth behind somthing.

This however is not an easy task. The reading for this week gave an example of a chinese king who executed his advisor and geve a false stance on the idea of invadeing an adjacent country in doing so. In this scenario it is very difficult to understand what you should do because you don't ae all the information.

A better way to decide who to be pursuaded by is to decide for yourself your opinion on an issue and tehn hear some ones arguement.

however to form an opinon of your own you generaly have to hear several others, and they may all be wrong. Even research text can be published for selfish motives.

if this is true then every thing is propoganda and it may even be possible that we are always trying to pursuade ourselves of things rather than objectively looking at things.

if this is so, any arguement i may have in the future and even this one right now are somewhat irrelevent given that you are predisposed by your own choice to come in the end to a specific answer

From Racism to Genocide

I never considered myself racist until I moved to Jacksonville, Florida the summer before my sophomore year of high school. My family had moved several times in my childhood, but the majority of my early years were spent in a small town in Tennessee. Although my Russian nationality made me a minority, I was still very much Caucasian and part of the White society. For a couple of years, I was part of an organization that reached out to intercity kids and had the chance to work closely with minority children from Hispanic and Black families. Because of this experience, I was convinced that I didn’t have a racist bone in me. However when I began school in Jacksonville, I was shocked at my own reaction. For the first time in my life, I felt like a minority not because of my nationality, but because I was white. It took me an entire year to sort through my emotions, thoughts and actions. I became very aware of racism and began to struggle against mine.

What is racism and what are the dangers behind it?

I think racism is a result of people categorizing themselves into specific groups and comparing to other groups. Categories such as White, Black, Asian, or Hispanic become part of our social identities. Although each individual has a social identity, racist ones lead to danger. Not only do people identify themselves by their skin color and/or nationality, groups such as Aryans, Hutus, and Tutsis begin to form. The problem is that “racism defies logic, knows no boundaries, and finds differences unacceptable and intolerable.” (White, 2009)

Two of the most horrific conflicts during the 20th Century are the Holocaust and Rwandan Genocide, both a result of racism. Nazi Germany murdered about 6 million Jews because they were considered subhuman and “parasites” to the Aryan society. (Engel, 2000) In Rwanda, the Tutsis were considered “vermin and cockroaches”; over 800,000 lost their lives during the 100 day massacre. (White, 2009)

I understand that racism is very real and can exist in any person regardless of their race or situation, just like it affected me. However, if it is not dealt with and becomes exacerbated within a social group, it can become extremely dangerous. History shows us that in fact, racism can lead to genocide.


References:

Engel, David. (2000). The Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews. London: Pearson Education.
White, Kenneth R. (2009). Scourge of Racism: Genocide in Rwanda. Journal of Black Studies 39 (3). Retrieved from http://ejscontent.ebsco.com.dax.lib.unf.edu