What about when people take on unquestioning deference to certain books, such as (for illustrative purposes and I'm not saying this particular book is actually likely to cause this) Mein Kampf?
What's the difference between Alex Jones preaching antivaxism on his internet podcast that you listen to, or in a book that you read?
A major difference is books are really terrible at propaganda.
They don’t get updated with the latest emotional hot button issues so they just can’t stomp on emotional triggers as well. It’s much easier to digest arguments and see the errors when you can reread them. They don’t take long to read so they don’t clog up access to other sources.
Rebuttals are targeting a specific argument so you can’t just keep throwing up intellectual chaff.
Books may not be good propaganda for the latest, localized issues, but they are fantastic propaganda for ideology.
I read Atlas Shrugged as an impressionable young teen, and developed some pretty horrible notions about society and morality (and literary technique) as a result. Of course I saw the error of my ways, in no small part by reading other books!
Don't get me wrong, books-as-propaganda isn't necessarily bad. Animal Farm, 1984, To Kill a Mockingbird... These are brilliant but are also such effective forms of propaganda that even mentioning their titles is a form of propaganda in itself.
> Of course I saw the error of my ways, in no small part by reading other books!
I think that shows their weaknesses. Propaganda seems to work best when reinforced over long periods. People read a book and get really into something for a while, X is now the one true diet! However, I rarely see longer term shifts without something else reinforcing the ideas.
By comparison the US military has been subsidizing media who want access to military hardware for decades as long as they follow a few guidelines. It’s a subtle drip of propaganda but across America and much of the globe people’s perception has very much been influenced in an enduring fashion. No single episode of talk radio or Fox News is particularly effective but listen for years and you get a meaningful effect.
>I read Atlas Shrugged as an impressionable young teen, and developed some pretty horrible notions about society and morality (and literary technique) as a result. Of course I saw the error of my ways, in no small part by reading other books!
I would be more worried about you developing a terrible sense of narrative and character development. I would kill for a well written ancap paradise book (there are plenty of Ancom options) but it honestly just sucks as a piece of writing I cant get into it.
>A major difference is books are really terrible at propaganda.
In my experience, consumers of propaganda respond to emotional and social cues. They rarely ever review the information provided without social and emotional context. Its always a video or a rally or something.
That can happen both ways and the problem doesn't lie in the content, but in the "unquestioning deference", which should get fixed by exposure to opposing views.
Whenever we dismiss bad ideas out of hand rather than showing how they are bad we miss one chance to prove our stance, and we ever so slightly feed the notion that maybe they aren't bad, just called bad.
People mostly "buy into" ideas they already have: developing critical thinking requires access to all sorts of true and false material, so readers would learn to differentiate between their nuances.
If the only book in your library is Mein Kampf, you are likely to empathise with young Mr. Hitler. If you have access to alternative viewpoints, you'll be forced to compare and contrast, and you just might develop your own understanding of the world.
But note that you'll always be comparing to the actual circumstances in your proximity: at school, neighbourhood, work...
As an atheist I often know the religious texts better than those who want to tell me I'm going to hell or whatever. As a kid I was thrown out of Sunday School for asking too many questions because I took the time to read the damn book.
Well, I think you should give a concrete example of such a dangerous book or we veer off into pointless whataboutism.
Considering Nazi propaganda, it used newspapers, radio and TV to a great effect. Mein Kampf alone did not turn Germans - a country of poets and scientist - to totalitarians.
What's the difference between Alex Jones preaching antivaxism on his internet podcast that you listen to, or in a book that you read?