In a global context in which one might be tempted to think that everyone has become the leader of their own propaganda department, and that personal propaganda departments--generators of narrative in real time over any number of platforms--now generate data not merely for consumption by others but also for projection onto other propaganda platforms, especially those of collectives.
Propaganda, today, is usually treated as a pejorative It is a species of the conveyance or production of narrative that contains, within it distortions or falsehoods, biases, or misleading bits that moves it from the usual effort to manage knowledge within acceptable bounds, to such management that violates the core premises of narrative contest. But even that us a weirdly unsatisfactory way of understanding propaganda. Its etymology provides a better window on meaning. Originally the term wasn't a general form of expression by a reference to a specific organ of foreign relations and evangelization of the 18th century European Catholic Church hierarchy--the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregaiton for the Propagation of the Faith, established in 1622 (Inscrutabili Divinae Providentiae).
The Church on earth, as the Decree Ad Gentes of the Second Vatican Council states, is missionary by nature, but in the self consciousness of Its being and Its mission there has been an increase, led by the Holy Spirit. An important moment in this "growth" was the foundation of the Congregation "de Propaganda Fide". The Church, starting from its summit, the Pope, realizes his inalienable call, to proclaim Christ, the only Saviour of the world and therefore having to drive, encourage, and organize all the forces available so that this saving proclamation reaches all nations. (Congregatio de Propaganda Fide)
Thus, at its root, the tern focuses on evangelization--on witnessing the truth of the "good news" of the ideas and premises around which one might better and more usefully interpret the word around them. "By 1790 the term had been generalized to include "any movement or organization to propagate some practice or ideology" . . . The modern political sense ("dissemination of information intended to promote a political point of view") dates from World War I, originally not pejorative or implying bias or deliberate deception. Meaning "material or information propagated to advance a cause, etc." is from 1929" (etymology). And from this it is an easy leap to the pejorative--the truth of one cognitive cage, grounded in its faith would be lies and untruths, manipulations, fake news and manipulative strategies to another.
And the yet older meaning draws greater power in the virtual worlds populated by platforms in which the autonomous evangels become parts of herd or communal evangelization in which the joy of the truth of one's own construct is an essential element of the communication within and between evangelizing communities. So here we are, despite the Enlightenment's efforts to "free" us of religion, it has merely fractured and reconstituted the faith of individuals and their communities. Faith--that is the object; faith, that is the significs; faith that provides the certainty of the cognitive cages within it is possible to develop a language, a narrative, that permits one to live one's faith and invite others within it. "He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." (Mark 16:15); "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen (Matt 28:19-20).
And this is what President Trump appears to want to do--to preach the work of his presidency in the way that organs and leaders everywhere, and influencers, individuals, and collectives--are each striving to do. For the unbelievers, of course, this is propaganda. For others, an expression of faith expressed in the jubilation over the Word. And in the expression of faith, the truth of its expression, and more importantly, the truth of its oppositions, becomes a matter of the cognitive cages of faith from out of which they emerge.
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