Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi hierarch in charge of the regime’s propaganda, systematised and made public his technique, which he used to achieve one of his political objectives: to establish Aryan supremacy by carrying out an ethnic cleansing that exterminated more than six million people with the direct support, or complicity, of his people.
To better understand Goebbels’ postulates, we must update the word propaganda, which today is discredited and in disuse, by communications that seem harmless and even give it a neutral and informative character.
Nazism came to power in a democratic system strongly influenced by Nazi political communications under the premise that: “if democracy is so stupid that it gives us the tools for the dirty work, that is its responsibility”.
Goebbels said that “propaganda (communication) must facilitate public opinion to focus on a subject of hatred”, and then repeat, repeat and repeat. “The Jews are guilty, the Jews are guilty! In the words of that time. They promote a discourse of hatred that denigrates and holds a human group responsible for the evils they want to avoid, because of their religion, country of origin, gender, race, etc.
He closed the cycle by stating that: “a lie (today fake news) told once will remain a lie (fake news), but if you repeat it a thousand times it will be true. If you repeat a fake news frequently, people will believe it, and you will end up believing it too.
A current world-famous example is Trump’s claim that the election was stolen from him. With no evidence to back it up, more than 70% of those who voted for him still believe it to be true.
In the time of Goebbels and Hitler, the media were few and easily controlled by the state. Today the media has been democratised through social media, but the power of money and access to new information technologies give these groups an undeniable advantage over ordinary citizens. The threat is more real than ever.
The Western world, in which Chile is immersed, values freedom of expression as one of the pillars of democracy. On that I agree, but we must develop the skills to distinguish truth from lies and to recognise when hate speech has been set in motion to achieve obscure goals.
We may still be rolling downhill, believing and accepting hate speech as unquestioned truth, but we must start work in the ambit of schools so that children and young people learn to identify manipulative communication techniques.
Finland has already started to do this in their classrooms as an educational policy. They have added a subject called media literacy, which consists of developing students’ critical thinking and the tools that allow them to detect false information that appears to be true. The sooner we start in Chile, the sooner we will improve the well-being of students and the health of our democracy.
