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The Spike or Victoria College Review 1940

Stoke up the Fires

page 11

Stoke up the Fires

Ride in Comfort. Make Democracy safe for democracy. Get rid of bile by taking Cureall—guaranteed to put pep in your pickup. Listen in at half-past seven for the Man in the Street Session. Breathe more air. Smell better. Baldness cured. Cinesound's scatter-brained laugh tonic. Read Ripe Passions. Drink . . . . Don't drink.

To meet the assault of modern propaganda with equilibrium one either needs the proverbial cast iron constitution or a detachedness second only to Krishnamurti. In a bedlam of voices and a blitzkrieg of type—charges, counter-charges, assertions, and contradictions assault us so that even the ancient privacy of the privy is shattered by newsprint and catalogues. Voices scream or purr with subtle ease. The daily post is scanned for headlines to divert to cunning advertisements for hair oil or silk scanties.

All "civilisations" have or have had their propagandas. Such is the will of Allah; Lassez-Faire; Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; Rule Brittania; Workers of the World unite; Anti-Comintern; Ours is the way of the Gods; The Fuhrer is always right; Survival of the Fittest.

So it was in that great movement of history, Christianity, where we find the first development of the weapon of mass appeal. In 1622 the Catholic Church developed and recognized the power to form and organize large masses of public opinion. The former created the first propaganda organisation—the office De Propaganda Fide. Through the centuries the weight and use of propaganda on a large scale was confined to religious organisations. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel—and so on. Politically it was developed as a weapon to assist in war during the 1914-18 struggle. Northcliffe and his Crewe House organization used propaganda in such a way as to call forth the praise of the Man with the Mou. H. G. Wells regretted his connections with it in more mature years.

Until now the American Institute of Propaganda Analysis defines propaganda as "the expression of opinion or action by individuals or groups deliberately designed to influence opinions or actions of other individuals or groups with reference to predetermined ends."

To influence opinions and actions—that is the main purpose of propaganda. Differing perhaps from scientific analysis, for the scientist is concerned with facts, but while the propagandist may utilize facts his primary purpose is to bring about action (or inaction) which may or may not be socially desirable. This can be accomplished in various ways.

First, the newspaper. I know some people who make a habit of reading the births, deaths, and marriages—maybe to get a kaleidoscopic view of life at a glance, others the "wanted ads." Nearly all readers buy the daily paper for news. Few, if any, to read the advertisements. Yet advertisements occupy on the average 11 pages out of the total of 18. And in this connection it is not surprising to learn that, gener- page 12 ally, advertising contributes more than one half the revenue of a newspaper. But advertisers are eager to neutralize the sour acid stomach, to cure corns, to give you rosy cheeks, red lips, sparkling eyes, and hair that is thick and lustrous; this is the logical choice, the doctor advises, men want—affirm and assert in order that the sale of a preparation worth twopence in a pretty container may be sold for one and six as the world's finest. To make such profits as to make Socialists mutter in their sleep. So a medium that exists to assist in propping up dividends, and which has no compunction about appropriating its share, is unlikely to be favourable to any propaganda that advocates the abolishment of private profit-making. Such is the case. Everything is "democratic" and "just" that does not alter the very convenience of coupon clipping, and limitations are regarded inevitably in a "your future in your hand style," as the direst of calamities, even unchristian, and always "red" and "socialistic" (with an aura of bloody revolution).

Yet I had occasion recently to investigate what people read, and found that eight out of ten depended wholly on the newspaper for their information regarding politics, economics and anything else on which they held definite views. I have even heard it said, on authority, that New Zealanders are one of the greatest newspaper reading peoples in the world.

Those newspapers that do not pursue a definite "line" speak with the disjointed aimlessness that is so well portrayed in the Ascent of F.6.

I read the papers; there is nothing there
But news of failure and despair.
The fire in the school, the children caught alight,
The starving actor in the oven lying,
The cashier shot in the grab raid left dying, . . . . . .
The student driven crazy by his reading,
The roadside accident, hopelessly bleeding.

Contrast this with Wickham Steeds ideal newspaper. "It would search out the truths behind these appearances and proclaim them, sparing no shams, respecting no conventions, giving honour where honour might be due, but calling cant and humbug by their names. It would not "hedge" in its treatment of thorny subjects, a miltant journal tied to no "interests," careless of hostility . . . . "

There will be no—

"... glib justification of the sorry act,
The frantic washing of the grimy fact."

But this would be an ideal newspaper. To consider the statement of Prof. Laski, and remember that New Zealanders are largely newspaper readers;—"Our difficulty is the twofold one that propaganda can produce immense results in a brief space of time, and that creative educational change takes something like a generation before its results are manifest on a wide scale. The forces at work to prevent the emergence of truth, the forces, also, which have every reason to dislike the development of the mind which seeks for truth, are many and concentrated, and powerful. They do not want the general reporting of experience, but only that experience which favours themselves. They do not want the general population so trained as to prize truth, but only so trained that they believe whatever they read.

page 13

In our own day it would not be an unfair description of education to define it as the art which teaches men to be deceived by the printed word. True that the citadel of the daily press may be peppered by pamphlets, small independents, working class journals, but even these are of little weight to the masses who habitually devour the morning and evening paper and direct their lives accordingly in oblivion.

But what is of no little concern is when a government (working class) consents to the suppression of organs that have been the most consistent, though critical, advocates of its policy of forward to Socialism. It may lead one to either of two conclusions, that this negative propaganda illustrates a fundamental weakness or deficiency in the government's own propaganda, which is serious enough, or even more serious it may mean compromise with its political opponents to such an extent as to disorganize and weaken the whole movement of which it is a part. It may be argued that unity at this critical time is essential. But a unity that is a concealed disunity, small though it may be, is dangerous. Still more so when the propaganda of that minority has always been anti-fascist.

And fascism or "national" socialism as Hitler has described it is "the utmost furtherance of private initiative and the recognition of the rights of property." Or as Mussolini advocates "the co-operation between labour and capital," and adds "that private initiative is the most effective and useful instrument of national interest." Think back to the election days—the newspapers—and one may smell out a wolf in sheep's clothing. A wolf that with wolf-like cunning licks the hand that pets it, but at any moment may give birth to a litter with a voracious appetite for stray limbs. Mussolini has declared "Fascism siezes individuals by their necks and tells them."This may be good and effective in totalitarian countries, but in a democracy (even at war) "Goddess Liberty" must not become "a decayed corpse." To stifle criticism of analysis of the present conflict (still permissible in There always will be England) is to prepare the immortal body for an early putrefaction.

Of all recent instruments of propaganda the motion picture film has been of no little importance. The cinema has displaced the church; the screen; the pulpit, the priestiso; the star, the voice: the box-office receipts. If I were a Christian, instead of attacking athiests, I would attack the film companies, but Christians are inveterate film fans. Someone described the film as "a celluloid mask against reality." I do not think this an underestimation.

"Went last night to the pictures;
The girl was almost bare.
The boy spent a million dollars on
That affair."

Blurb - - - -

"A candid camera view of college life . . . . the maddest story of screamlined fun at college! Roaring out of the mountains comes a picture as big as the golden country it immortalizes. Super thrills . . . . excitement. Rapid action. Exacted with ringing sincerity by a perfect cast. Guns roar, songs soar. A blazing romance. It has shocked the world!

Same technique, same appeals, same deception, same "interests" looking for the same dividends. "Many thousands of people visit cinemas regularly each week. A page 14 large proportion are young people, mainly adolescent. These people, quite apart from satisfying dormant sexual inhibition, quite apart from pleasure to be had by wish-fulfilment and self-identification, are unconsciously being conditioned into accepting the shape of inanimate objects they see and the actions of persons relative to these objects, that is to say to environment. The critics extol technicalities but leave severely alone the shallow theme, false values, cheap emotions and shoddy thought and characterization. An occasional exception such as "Of Mice and Men" runs one week in town. But capitalism needs, exploits, and concocts the aphrodisiacs of the half-hidden breast, the shapely leg, the local boy makes good, and the hard done by rich-girl stories. To do otherwise—to picturise how a better society could be built and why it is not, is as taboo as the discussion of contraceptives in a crowded tramcar.

There is one isolated piece of government propaganda that merits comment. It consisted of a short, running five minutes, advocating the conservation of petrol. Technique, plot and sequence of this production makes it possibly the first N.Z. production (Government Film Studios) to reach a standard comparable with John Grieson documentaries. It also illustrates that such films can be made in N.Z. providing there is a minimum of bureaucratic control. The fact that they are government films, I think should be given the minimum of publicity. Obvious propaganda from governmental sources is as often as not resented and hence nullified.

But—Here is the News! Propaganda is a weapon of modern warfare and one of its main instruments is the radio. Much as I abhor Coopers snoopers, I have asked numerous people their opinions of Daventry Broadcasts. Most thought that they were exaggerated, but they did not object to this. What they did object to was that the broadcasts came at too frequent intervals and from all stations. Some objected to the "tone" of voice the announcer used, many preferred the midday Canadian commentator. Some thought that a little humour could easily be introduced.

The technique of the Nazi radio propaganda is different. Lord Haw-Haw and assistants are at times so obviously absurd as to be laughable. I remember one broadcast which claimed that the streets of England were all narrow and dark and that rats abounded in them. One instance was reported where a British Minister was lunching in France, a few hours before, Berlin broadcast a detailed description of the menu. The danger of the former is that people will tune into Berlin to get a laugh and in addition get a dose of propaganda; the latter is an illustration of the power of German espionage. "The poor country lads" broadcast is another.

It is noted that the N.Z.B.C. now counters this with short items caricaturing the fascist leadership. Of B.B.C. broadcasts to Germany I know little except than to say that they could do well to follow their opponent's humour—and stir an audience with facts never obvious but subtle.

Sir John Reith says in his "Broadcast over Britain": "The effects of broadcasting are subtle and secret . . . . They (the listeners) cannot estimate the extent to which they have allowed broadcasting to colour their opinions or influence their thoughts." Subtle and secret—those are the key words for radio.

So much for the main instruments of propaganda. The weight that I have given to the newspaper is considerable for I think that it still is, in New Zealand, the primary propaganda weapon. I have not touched upon the Book Clubs or the Penguins, both of which have brought about a veritable revolution in literature. My complaint page 15 about the newspaper and the film is their "real" object and purpose; in different circumstances I visualize them as otherwise. As builders and cementers of a true economic and political democracy. So next when you switch on your radio, unfold your newspaper or lounge in the cinema, recall the A B C's of propaganda.

Don't be stampeded.

Beware of your own prejudices.

Suspend your judgment until more sides of the issue are presented.

Analyse them.

And remember that socially desirable views and proposals will not suffer from examination; the opposite type will be detected and revealed for what it is.

B.

Material used for this article:—

The Daily Newspapers.

The Fine Art of Propaganda—American Institute of Propaganda Analysis.

Propaganda (R. S. Lambert).

The New Propaganda (Amber Blanco White).

Liberty in the Modern State (H. J. Laski).

The New Horizon (August, 1940).

The Ascent of F.6 (Auden & Isherwood).

On the Frontier (Auden & Isherwood)

Cinema Survey (Robert Herring).

The Press (Wickham Steed).

Press, Radio and Social Consciousness (Charles Madge).

No Compromise (Melvin Rader).

Fabian Quarterly, No. 24.