Ellul’s Propaganda: Agitprop, Integration, & Disintegration Propaganda

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/thepast33yrs This video covers Jacque Ellul’s 1962 book Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes. Propaganda is a nebulous and almost mythical concept. It is something that exists somewhere, but not here, or exists here and not somewhere else. Or, in our hyper-polarized age, propaganda is just the stuff that the other side believes. But, in the maximalist lens, propaganda is merely an ever-present, always penetrating, and all encompassing miasma—it is the matrix in which we live. It is a box, inside of a box, inside of another box, ad nauseam—or, two mirrors endlessly bouncing one another’s reflection into infinity. Realistically, escaping propaganda is almost impossible; or, at the very least, it is actually psychologically undesirable as escaping propaganda would mean social isolation and alienation—a sort of annihilation. Whether propaganda has architects or whether it merely is an emergent ghost in the machine is debatable, but in all likelihood it is not purely either one or the other. In this video, we will explore the work of Jacques Ellul—specifically his book titled Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, which was originally published in French in 1962. This book along with Ellul’s other famous work—The Technological Society, which was published in 1954—explores Ellul’s general framework that the mass society, the Technological Society, and its ever-present companion—propaganda—is something that is autonomous, emergent, and beyond the bounds of agentic human control. At the confluence of complexity, technology, and society is what Ellul calls technique, which he defines as the following in the preface to The Technological Society: “Technique is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.” (p. xxv) #ellul, #bernays, #propaganda, #psyop, #emergence, #freewill, #machiavelli, #determinism, #philosophy, #sociology, #psychology, #AI, #simulationtheory SOURCES: Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, 1962 (French), 1965 (English), Vintage Books/Random House Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, 1954 (French), 1964 (English), Vintage Books/Random House Edward L. Bernays, Crystallizing Public Opinion, 1923, Liveright Publishing Co. Bertrand de Jouvenel, On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth, 1945, Currently Published by Liberty Fund via arrangement with Random House/Hutchinson and Viking Penguin/Penguin USA Inc. Beissinger, M., The Social Sources of Counterrevolution: State Sponsored Contention During Revolutionary Episodes, Princeton University, (https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/mobilized_contention/files/beissinger.counterrevolution.paper_.pdf) United Nations, HDRO co-authors cutting-edge research using AI and satellite imagery to estimate HDI at a highly granular local level, February 23, 2026, (https://hdr.undp.org/content/hdro-co-authors-cutting-edge-research-using-ai-and-satellite-imagery-estimate-hdi-highly) Wall Street Journal, Rob Henderson, ‘Luxury Beliefs’ That Only the Privileged Can Afford,’ February, 9, 2024 World Bank, MVA (current USD) (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.CD) World Bank, World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS), (https://wits.worldbank.org/) Mentioned: Matt Taibbi’s “Hate Inc.” & Randall Lloyd’s “Psycho-Progressivism” For a good and concise summary of Elite Theory, see Neema Parvini's "The Populist Delusion" (2022) available on Amazon. IMAGES: WikiCommons, User: Fotoafdrukken Koninklijke Luchtmacht ,A Dutch Eurocopter AS532 Cougar fires its flares during a night exercise., CC BY-SA 4.0, (Modified to Change Color), (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flare_(countermeasure)#/media/File:Een_Cougar_tijdens_nachtelijk_flare-dispensing_boven_zee.jpg) Wiki Commons, User: AimNature, ‘PES for Water Molecule,’ CC BY-SA 3.0, Modified to remove text, add dots & arrow, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_energy_surface#/media/File:Potential_Energy_Surface_for_Water.png) Wiki Commons, Léon Frédéric - The peasant's meal, Public Domain, (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Léon_Frédéric_-_The_peasant's_meal.jpg) Wiki Commons, Painting of steel production in Ougrée, Belgium, by Constantin Meunier (1885), Public Domain, (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/La_coulée_à_Ougrée.jpg) Wiki Commons, StRolloxChemical 1831.jpg, Public Domain, (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/StRolloxChemical_1831.jpg)