I completely agree that it's not an accident that China in particular is the US State Dept's chosen enemy. But that is only one half of it, the other half that I'm considering is why the public is receptive to it. There is a degree of information control in the US, but it is still easy to hear alternative viewpoints through the internet.
I don't believe it is as simple as brainwashing, or Chomsky's manufacturing consent, or Parenti's inventing reality, or any other top-down approach on a totally passive population.
There's a good article on RedSails about this topic, in which the author argues (convincingly IMO) in favor of licensing, rather than brainwashing. In summary it argues that people are not merely duped by propaganda, they often choose to believe it for whatever reasons corresponding to their real conditions of life.
Edit: Ok I've been re-reading this article and it turns out they talk about the Uiguhr-genocide narrative, so it's even more fitting to this dicussion:
Let us look at a specific example. A claim like “There’s cultural genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang” is simply unreal to most Westerners, close to pure gibberish. The words really refer to existing entities and geographies, but Westerners aren’t familiar with them. The actual content of the utterance as it spills out is no more complex or nuanced than “China Bad,” and the elementary mistakes people make when they write out statements of “solidarity” make that much clear. This is not a complaint that these people have not studied China enough — there’s no reason to expect them to study China, and retrospectively I think to some extent it was a mistake to personally have spent so much time trying to teach them. It’s instead an acknowledgment that they are eagerly wielding the accusation like a club, that they are in reality unconcerned with its truth-content, because it serves a social purpose.
What is this social purpose? Westerners want to believe that other places are worse off, exactly how Americans and Canadians perennially flatter themselves by attacking each others’ decaying health-care systems, or how a divorcee might fantasize that their ex-lover’s blooming love-life is secretly miserable. This kind of “crab mentality” is actually a sophisticated coping mechanism suitable for an environment in which no other course of action seems viable. Cognitive dissonance, the kind that eventually spurs one into becoming intolerant of the status quo and into action, is initially unpleasant and scary for everybody. In this way, we can begin to understand the benefit that “victims” of propaganda derive from carelessly “spreading awareness.” Their efforts feed an ambient propaganda haze of controversy and scandal and wariness that suffocates any painful optimism (or jealousy) and ensuing sense of duty one might otherwise feel from a casual glance at the amazing things happening elsewhere. People aren’t “falling” for atrocity propaganda; they’re eagerly seeking it out, like a soothing balm.
I see a few flaws in their analysis. Straight off the bat
A claim like “There’s cultural genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang” is simply unreal to most Westerners, close to pure gibberish.
Because it isn't merely a stated claim. It is a work of propaganda enforced by a blizzard of images, testimonials, and bits of statistical data intended to build a conception of who the Uyghurs are, what Chinese state officials are doing, and how there is an urgent need for American intercession.
there’s no reason to expect them to study China, and retrospectively I think to some extent it was a mistake to personally have spent so much time trying to teach them
I agree its a fool's errand to run in after the fact and try to deprogram a person sold on a heavily invested narrative. You're bringing a pen to a gun fight.
At the same time, a broad understanding of historical patterns and a materialist understanding of global conditions over time forms a foundation that's resistant to these kinds of explosive claims. If you have a population that's familiar with the historical arc of the East Asian sub-continent - the famines, the wars, the Century of Humiliation, the repeated failed revolutions, the genocide committed by the Japanese, and then the 60 decades of rebuilding that brought the modern nation of China into its current state - then seeing the Chinese modernization of Xinjiang as meaningfully distinct from British Enclosures or the American Homestead Acts or King Leopold's conquest of the Congo is easier.
Its this understanding that leads to agitation. But it has to come from some broader historical understanding, particularly one that they can get a piece of in their own lives.
People aren’t “falling” for atrocity propaganda; they’re eagerly seeking it out, like a soothing balm.
I don't buy this, because I know too many people who are functionally agitated and are actively looking for opportunities to rebel. Its these people who the "Uyghur Genocide" or "Slava Ukraini" narratives work the best against, as they can channel efforts into a struggle against evil colonialism in a manner that doesn't kick the hornet's nest quite so close to home.
By contrast, the folks who are all in on American Exceptionalism tend not to respond to the baseline of outrage. A weak ethnic minority being suffocated by its neighbor is fine - even desirable. A regional rebel government espousing liberal-ish values is Woke beside the Based Might of Big Daddy Russia and deserves to lose.
If people were eagerly seeking this shit out to balm their consciences, American conservatives would be the first ones in line to gobble this shit up.
No. I think trying to displace blame from a central cohort of influence peddlers and bullshit artists onto a generic mass of information consumers by claiming they're subconsciously complicit in their own gullibility... It really is just victim blaming.
I completely agree that it's not an accident that China in particular is the US State Dept's chosen enemy. But that is only one half of it, the other half that I'm considering is why the public is receptive to it. There is a degree of information control in the US, but it is still easy to hear alternative viewpoints through the internet.
I don't believe it is as simple as brainwashing, or Chomsky's manufacturing consent, or Parenti's inventing reality, or any other top-down approach on a totally passive population.
There's a good article on RedSails about this topic, in which the author argues (convincingly IMO) in favor of licensing, rather than brainwashing. In summary it argues that people are not merely duped by propaganda, they often choose to believe it for whatever reasons corresponding to their real conditions of life.
Edit: Ok I've been re-reading this article and it turns out they talk about the Uiguhr-genocide narrative, so it's even more fitting to this dicussion:
The amount of times one can simply quote the Red Sails essay is ridiculous, in regards to the modern-day Western hit-pieces...
I see a few flaws in their analysis. Straight off the bat
Because it isn't merely a stated claim. It is a work of propaganda enforced by a blizzard of images, testimonials, and bits of statistical data intended to build a conception of who the Uyghurs are, what Chinese state officials are doing, and how there is an urgent need for American intercession.
I agree its a fool's errand to run in after the fact and try to deprogram a person sold on a heavily invested narrative. You're bringing a pen to a gun fight.
At the same time, a broad understanding of historical patterns and a materialist understanding of global conditions over time forms a foundation that's resistant to these kinds of explosive claims. If you have a population that's familiar with the historical arc of the East Asian sub-continent - the famines, the wars, the Century of Humiliation, the repeated failed revolutions, the genocide committed by the Japanese, and then the 60 decades of rebuilding that brought the modern nation of China into its current state - then seeing the Chinese modernization of Xinjiang as meaningfully distinct from British Enclosures or the American Homestead Acts or King Leopold's conquest of the Congo is easier.
Its this understanding that leads to agitation. But it has to come from some broader historical understanding, particularly one that they can get a piece of in their own lives.
I don't buy this, because I know too many people who are functionally agitated and are actively looking for opportunities to rebel. Its these people who the "Uyghur Genocide" or "Slava Ukraini" narratives work the best against, as they can channel efforts into a struggle against evil colonialism in a manner that doesn't kick the hornet's nest quite so close to home.
By contrast, the folks who are all in on American Exceptionalism tend not to respond to the baseline of outrage. A weak ethnic minority being suffocated by its neighbor is fine - even desirable. A regional rebel government espousing liberal-ish values is Woke beside the Based Might of Big Daddy Russia and deserves to lose.
If people were eagerly seeking this shit out to balm their consciences, American conservatives would be the first ones in line to gobble this shit up.
No. I think trying to displace blame from a central cohort of influence peddlers and bullshit artists onto a generic mass of information consumers by claiming they're subconsciously complicit in their own gullibility... It really is just victim blaming.