Tag: ellul
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Sex, Power, and Conservative Dating
What makes patriarchy into a conspiracy, despite the fact that there isn’t a grand organization or a newsletter or anything like that, is that it is understood that it must be held up by collusion. Husbands and patriarchs must all agree to enforce certain standards of behavior in their wives and children, standards which leave…
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The Propaganda Machine
The following is an excerpt from a draft commentary I’m working on, going through Ellul’s Propaganda chapter by chapter, section by section. Have I talked about bouncing off Ellul’s work before? Yes, I have. Why am I returning to it now? I wanted to refine my thoughts on persuasion and propaganda, so I thought the…
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Why Propaganda Works
“American sociologists scientifically try to play down the effectiveness of propaganda because they cannot accept the idea that the individual—that cornerstone of democracy—can be so fragile; and because they retain their ultimate trust in man.” This is a line from early in Jacques Ellul’s book Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (Propagandes in the original…