Propaganda: Poetry Appreciation 101

In combating propaganda, there are several traps you could fall into. The first trap is thinking that there is an easy way to sort out truth vs. propaganda. You will never figure out whether you are a brainwashed zombie or not by watching a three minute youtube video.

The second trap is thinking that a good education will protect you from being brainwashed by propaganda. If you think you are immune to propaganda just because you have travelled the world with a PhD in Current Affairs or whatever, you are almost surely mistaken.

So what is the answer? We need to spend a lot of time learning from what is going on and absorbing different sources of information. We also need to keep open minds and ask ourselves how this would look if we put ourselves in the other person's shoes. For example, if we are told Iran should be bombed because they may be making an atomic weapon, we must turn it around and ask ourselves if we would like Iran to bomb Canada because we tried to acquire a nuclear weapon. That's just an example.

The way propaganda works is first to make the world very difficult to understand, and the resulting confusion pushes people to want simple solutions. So the propaganda, of course provides those simple solutions.

Poetry Appreciation as it Relates to Propaganda

I am going to try to link some old literature to the theme of propaganda, just to show we can still learn from it. This literature was actually written before propaganda existed, but the best literature is that which continues to be relevant though times may change.

Lewis Carroll wrote "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" in the late 1800's. He wrote about a world of nonsense, which just happens to be what a world filled with propaganda feels like. It also happens to be what it feels like on mind altering drugs in the sixties, but I won't go into that right now.

In these two novels, a little girl named Alice enters a world where none of the assumptions she grew up with apply any more. She meets characters, trying to "explain" her the ways of their world. She is polite, and often confused, but sincerely tries to understand each person or animal she comes in contact with.

Carroll was ostensibly writing for children, and apparently children and stoned people do find his work entertaining, but it is possible to take a deeper meaning. The first, I would say is to learn what it is like to be confronted with propaganda, which typically tries to convince you that your previous world view was wrong, and this new one makes so much more sense, even though it turns upside down and backwards anything you knew before. You know, things like "Jesus approves of war", "Bears don't sh*t in the woods", and "The Pope is a Mennonite".

I want to interpret here a poem by Lewis Carroll that was read to Alice by the famous character Tweedledee. Who was the twin of Tweedledum, but a lot of people these days have forgotten his name and refer to the twins as Tweedledum and Tweedledumber. The poem was "The Walrus and the Carpenter", the most famous verse comes in the middle of the poem:

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

This poem by Lewis Carrol is not so much about walruses as it is about oysters. The young, foolish oysters who go for a walk with the walrus thinking that they would learn much, but actually the walrus wanted to eat them for lunch. (spoiler alert!)

When I read the poem, I laughed because it is funny. But then I'm almost ready to cry for the poor little oysters. I wouldn't feel so bad for the oysters if they were just unthinking creatures to be gathered up and tossed in the soup. But these poor little things can talk and think! They are hungry for intellectual stimulation, with questions such as "why is the sea boiling hot" and "Do pigs have wings". But that is only because the Walrus has put these questions in their little heads, really the bigger question the oysters should be asking themselves is "Why is the walrus taking us for a walk on the beach?"

Such is the danger of a little intelligence. The oysters are just intelligent enough to help the walrus (possibly symbolizing capitalism) eat them for dinner. If they were any dumber, the walrus would have to do the work himself of carrying the oysters home and throwing them in the pot. If they were any smarter, they would question the motives of the walrus in beseeching them to go with him for "A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, along the briny beach"

This poem has the lesson that the greatest danger of having some intelligence and curiosity about the world, is in being tricked into working for our own demise.

The entire text of "Through the Looking Glass" can be found online here:

The picture is Grace Slick, of Jefferson Airplane, singing "White Rabbit" in the sixties. My favourite line that she wrote was "When the Truth is found.. To be lies", too bad it was not in this song.