Book Review: "How Propaganda Works" by Jason Stanley
How Does Propaganda Escape Notice in Liberal Democracies?
Overall Rating: 4.0/5.0
Jason Stanley's How Propaganda Works is required reading in a college course on propaganda that I am taking. Of all the readings assigned, I found this book to be the most insightful. Its greatest strengths are
its focus on how propaganda works in a liberal democracy;
its greater formality than texts such as Propaganda and Persuasion by Jowett and O'Donnell; and
the introduction provided on current thinking on epistemology and linguistics.
Unfortunately, the book is not without its weaknesses. In particular, writing with an eye to style and accessibility has historically been an area of weakness for many philosophers. Although Stanley is far from being in league with the worst, the book could have easily been improved with greater attention here.
Stanley’s Central Theses
Stanley argues that in authoritarian societies, propaganda will not escape notice. Indeed, it will often be recognized as such but not taken seriously. As an example, Stanley describes a German citizen recounting that he knew that what the Nazis were saying about the Jews was exaggerated but that he thought they were just saying it to score political points and that it was not anything they were going to act on. By contrast, Stanley believes that, in a democracy, propaganda will be taken seriously but not recognized as such. His goal in the book is, thus, to make the mechanisms of propaganda in liberal democracies more apparent.
One way Stanley attempts to show how propaganda works in a liberal democracy is through linguistics. Stanley considers statements that, when viewed in isolation, seem to merely be true statements. Often, obviously so. Although true, Stanley argues that some of these statements carry loaded meaning. The loaded meaning comes about through past propaganda. Stanley gives the example of the word welfare, which he says has come to be associated with black people through past conservative propaganda such as campaigns against “welfare queens.”
Central to Stanley's arguments is that past propaganda was successful because of appeals to flawed ideologies within the culture: In the case of welfare with the notion that black people are inherently lazy and prone to criminality. Stanley thus believes that because the words now contain coded meanings, even an attempt to discuss welfare policies objectively will simply reinforce the false ideology that black people are inherently lazy.
The second main thrust of Stanley’s theory is that propaganda works by attacking liberal democratic society epistemologically: that is, literally preventing citizens from acquiring knowledge or losing it once gained. Stanley discusses a couple of ways this happens:
One mechanism is through flawed ideologies, causing negatively privileged members of society not to be taken seriously by elites.
The second mechanism is by undermining the confidence of negatively privileged citizens as to when they have acquired knowledge. Stanley cites social science research showing that when the stakes are high, as they are for those struggling for the basics in society, although you are likely to act more rationally, the bar to feeling you are confident enough that you know something to act is higher than when you live the easier life of an elite.
Assessment of Arguments
Stanley's overall case of how propaganda works is compelling, especially given the social science research he presents to back it. This prevents his conjectures from being "pure theory," as some philosophy seems prone to become. Also strengthening the case is that his definitions tend to be quite precise. Stanley is also proactive in showing the practical limitations of his theories. For example, sometimes, it will only be apparent in retrospect when something is a flawed ideology. Going even further, for some ideologies, such as religions, it may never be known whether or not they are flawed.
Although the arguments are compelling overall, some of Stanley's examples are suspect. With regard to welfare, for instance, Stanley claims that using the word does not invoke notions of poor white Appalachians. This seems dubious since many will think of them or "trailer trash" when they hear the word.
The actionability of Stanley's conclusions could also be improved. For instance, how does one know when something has a "coded meaning" due to past propaganda and when it just means what it says? Indeed, many conservatives feel that accusations of racism by the woke, for instance, are often meritless and due to people simply reading too much "hidden meaning" into something that can be better understood to just mean what it says.
Also problematic and important to some arguments is that Stanley presents whether control of wealth in society is fair as a binary. Most, however, see wealth control in America as something neither entirely fair nor completely unjust. Also problematic on this subject is that Stanley mostly avoids discussing to what extent a "cure" here might be worse than the disease.
Despite the concerns, as Stanley correctly points out, just recognizing a problem does not mean one must know how to solve it. I can know that my knee hurting is a problem without knowing what to do about it. Even if the doctor does not know either, that still does not mean it is not a problem. As such, it is somewhat reasonable for Stanley to leave to future research how to know when a phrase has a hidden meaning versus just meaning what it says.
Style and Accessibility
As mentioned, the most significant weaknesses of this book are its writing style and accessibility. Although I generally appreciated that this book attempted to be more formal than other works on propaganda, it often veered off into needless pedantry. This often came in the form of Stanley explaining how he had established what he set out to prove when it was clear that he had; no explanation was needed. At other times, there was hair-splitting on finer points not critical to the argument.
In addition to the pedantry, and sometimes a consequence of it, the book could have been made much more concise. Some more rounds of editing and rewriting would likely have caught this. As it stands, however, there is considerable unnecessary repetition.
Finally, in terms of stylistic issues, some may see the level of formality as a bad compromise. It is definitely not mathematics or formal logic, so not going far enough for some. Simultaneously, however, it likely goes far enough to lose many readers in places. My estimate is that the book would be a moderately challenge read at the third or fourth-year undergraduate level.
Conclusion
Stanley has contributed significantly to understanding how propaganda works in liberal democracies. A side effect of reading this book is that it also provides a good introduction as to where some areas of linguistics and epistemology currently stand.
In some cases, although Stanley uses different wording, he comes to the same conclusions as Marxists, for example, regarding what they call false consciousness. In others, he comes to some of the same conclusions as post-modernists although he, however, avoids that phrase. An example is his conclusion regarding how the power dynamics of society can put up epistemological barriers to the less powerful feeling that they know well enough to act.
Although Stanley is open about his leftist preferences, by approaching propaganda through analytic philosophy and by making frequent references to empirical research, many of his conclusions should be more palatable to conservatives.
Finally, compared to other major works on propaganda, such as Bernays or Chomsky, Stanley's is the most precise in his definitions. He also provides the most detailed elaboration on the theory of how it all works. This book is, thus, a must-read for those hoping for a book that will deliver on the promise in this book's title to explain "How Propaganda Works."