Sure, but it is equally likely that your old perspective was the result of propaganda and your new one is a rational adjustment in the face of new information. Or that both are propaganda, I suppose.
Let's assume that's the case. Then without having witnessed the propaganda, I'd not have proper context to what you just told me. I'd have to go with somebody (you) claiming what had been the propaganda back in the day. And that sounds pretty unbelievable, so it's good that I witnessed it, then I can appreciate the point that you are making.
Either way, better to have had open eyes and ears than not.
It is. It's possible to have two completely valid, objective, and opposed positions in an argument where multiple different groups have a vested interest in one position being more popular than the other.
Which one is propaganda?
The one you disagree with?
The one that doesn't fit with your preconceived notions?
The one that doesn't fit with your personality profile?
Both positions? Neither position?
Do we just shut down all thinking on the internet?
Who watches the watchers?
Well, I guess it could go both ways, but I learnt it as even if it's true it can still be propaganda - propaganda isn't inherently misleading, but you always have to be careful.
Perhaps, but what people find propaganda or not varies from person to person. Especially in this age where apparently none of us can agree on facts and truth.
Yep. There's whole different point of views to be seen. People are saying propaganda like it means only the caricaturization of propaganda(i.e.: overt), and, corollarily, like what is not overt is not propaganda or like it's "but ours is nicer/good". It's not like this, propaganda is everywhere. To me, anything that's not the pure facts plus context is the same as propaganda/ideology, there's only reality or propaganda/ideology, it's what I'm saying. If you want to approximate reality of stuff getting the different perspectives is absolutely mandatory. I guess that's too much work for most people, though.
I think it was an observation of their mental process at work, in which we tend to remember things we read as facts even if we do not know they are true (or even if we know they are not true at the time of reading). In other words: the change of opinion was not necessarily rational, why is why they said "It's amazing how well this works despite being obvious propaganda."
Yes. To see past propaganda, separate in your mind the concepts of a government and the people. A governments and its leaders are to the people, as you are to the earth you walk on: temporary, fickle, selfish, often destructive but ultimately irrelevant.
Yes. The difference was, back then, the US government had a monopoly on propaganda in the US. I'm not saying that's great, but at least it's stable. Now we're in an age where propaganda literally goes to the highest bidder.
Propaganda is a weapon, and I'd rather my own government hold it, than unknown entities.
Spend your time as you please, but you seem pretty cavalier about the risks and practical limitations.
The notion that you're personally always going to be able to see past propaganda is not giving enough credit to people who are good at propaganda. Everybody who falls for propaganda thinks they're smarter than that. Sure, they can spot the stuff that was meant to take other sorts of people in, but everybody has weaknesses.
But even assuming you could, you really can't do the research on everything. The world's too big. No matter what the topic, we all need filtering heuristics. And you give a really good one:
> Can I understand why they reached a different conclusion than me?
Often the answer is, "Because they were paid to." Or, "Because somebody was paid to amplify wacky outliers." For advertising, PR, and propaganda, all of the actual material can be taken with a grain of salt and the conclusions can be ignored, because the conclusions were foreordained.
As an example, take something you aren't personally well-disposed toward. Say, Q. How much time do you spend reading their ever-metastasizing set of theories and beliefs? How much have you personally refined your beliefs based what you read of theirs?
I'd hope the answer here is approximately zero, because a) it isn't worth your time, and b) there is a non-zero chance that it turns any given reader, yourself included, into a believer. That's the point of most propaganda, after all.
Too often people forget that propaganda machines (media outlets) and biased education materials significantly shape the perspective people have of the world. That's the kind of 'mind control' which matters.
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