Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 23 – In Soviet times, both rulers and ruled understood that it was absolutely necessary for everyone to absorb all of the editorials of Iskra and Pravda, but today, Vladimir Pastukhov says, the rulers do not have the same ambition and the ruled don’t have the same readiness to do so.
Instead, in today’s version of totalitarianism, the London-based Russian analyst says, “no one is really interested in the texts, including those who compose them.” Rather it is the titles and even more the superficial associations that those few words create and the hallucinatory power they have (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=635462C4EC21F).
The rulers are sure that “90 percent of their audience never read any texts;” and so neither those who produce the texts nor those who might scan them care very much. And that means in turn that “to create the desired – and mostly negative – connotation” or message must be within the title itself.
Such “ideological processing” works “only under one condition,” Pastukhov continues. “The perceiving side msut be kept in a state of permanent stress which completely blocks any critical consciousness.” And thus, “the trick of modern propaganda lies in that it has been able to simulate ongoing stress that allows any nonsense to be inserted into the brains” of the audience.
Indeed, “the main condition for the effectiveness of propaganda is the successful installation of ‘the attack’” in the title. That explains why the Kremlin uses “the aura of the Great Patriotic War” even when there is no real attack on Russia to create “the absolute illusion” that there is one.
Over time, “this hallucination of war is stronger than the perception of reality by one’s own senses.” And even when there is clear evidence that it is nonsense, “this hallucination will continue to exist,” something made easier by the fact that today’s audiences don’t read beyond the titles and those who want to message them are very aware of that reality.
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