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Comment by cardanome | Hacker News Reader

It is literally propaganda. Very good propaganda with a very good and truthful message. (Except maybe a bit of too much idealizing the US and also the role of the catholic church but the main point is fine.)

I guess the confusion is because in Western societies people are used to the doublespeak of only calling something propaganda when it is done by the "other side". The other side is "spreading the narrative" you are "reporting facts".

You use different words to describe the same thing. Like the good guys are "rebels" and the bad guys are "terrorists".

There is nothing wrong with propaganda. It can be used for good or bad. Just don't start falling for your own one.

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Afaik European Union has a budget for „(fighting/anti) propaganda“ - so yes!

Also, something I keep repeating: even the most loathsome propagandists prefer to use the truth, when the truth is on their side. Bad people make good points all the time. Bad people can't succeed without good points, or at the very least technically true points.

Well, the standard definition of propaganda is that it is false and misleading :

> information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a particular cause, doctrine, or point of view.

Which I think most people consider bad. If the information is true and not misleading, it would be considered educational or informational.

> *biased* or misleading

The bias is what would make somebody consider some propaganda good and others bad.

Like - anti-fascist propaganda is good because it’s biased against an anti-human and oppressive ideology.

The traditional meaning of the phrase is that it is not neccessarily information of a misleading nature but is propagated to advance a particular political aim. In that older definition, propaganda can be true or false, misleading of correct.

The current connotation to me seems a result of propaganda from authoritarian states (nazis in germany, communists in the old communist bloc) and the presupposition that the propaganda they pushed was misleading and/or false.

As long as you pick one definition and stick with it, you can define propaganda how you want. But this is not what people do. They juggle two definitions of propaganda: one broad where anything used to convince you of something is propaganda, and one narrow where it by definition is deceptive.

It's the original "no true Scotsman": there the broad definition (Scotsman=person from Scotland) is used to argue for the narrow definition ("real" Scotsman=good and upstanding person from Scotland)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

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