Propaganda Social Exclusion

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Propaganda and other forms of politically motivated rhetoric are commonly deployed in political campaigns, public policy campaigns, and other types of social movements, as well as in advertising, news services, and popular culture. This is nothing new. Plato was worried about the ways in which political rhetoric and similar forms of speech impact our self-understanding as social and ethical beings; and many subsequent philosophers have been troubled by the effect of systematically distorted forms of communication. In this course, we will attempt to pursue these sorts of issues, building on the many things that we have learned about propaganda and social exclusion since Plato first puzzled through these issues. First, we will attempt to figure out what propaganda is, and how it differs from other forms of speech. Second, we will ask how and why it works, and we will examine the ways in which it is employed as a mechanism of dehumanization and social exclusion. We will draw on a host of multidisciplinary perspectives, as much of the relevant work has gone on outside of philosophy (and we will talk about why that is!). So while our primary approach will be philosophical, we will also need to draw on resources from anthropology, cultural psychology, cognitive science, and social theory. No background knowledge of philosophy or these other disciplines is expected or required.