Law & Liberty just published a talk I gave at the Philadelphia Society meeting earlier this year on conservatism and the future of truth.

We live in an age of propaganda. We are saturated by it from advertising, intrusive technology, and the latest politically correct fashion. We also live in a time that requires us to make lots of distinctions to plex problems, which propaganda makes almost impossible.

While all ages and people are tempted by what Josef Pieper calls the “abuse of language, abuse of power,” the French social philosopher Jacques Ellul, argues that contemporary technological society makes propaganda more pervasive. Ellul writes

“ propaganda is called upon to solve problems created by technology, to play on maladjustments, and to integrate the individual into a technological world…

In the midst of increasing mechanization and technological organization, propaganda is simply the means used to prevent these things from being felt as too oppressive and to persuade man to submit with good grace.”

3 ways to resist propaganda

In the essay I suggest three ways to both resist propaganda and the temptation to use if for our own ends.

We need to be more assertive in addressing foundational weakness of modern social sciences and sciences and politics.We need to be philosophical in our approach and avoid the temptation of knee-jerk reactions or ideological responses.We have to avoid the temptation to fall into brand building at the expense of truth.

In the third part I address Patrick Deneen’s book Why Liberalism Failed as an example of an important argument that has slipped into a brand.