The purpose of propaganda (covid version)

Reflections on a quotation from a British psychiatrist that was originally made in the context of communist society, but which also applies to what we have seen in recent years

Dear Church Leaders (and everyone else)

I am old enough to remember a time before streaming, when people bought music on vinyl, or even cassette. And at the time of my life when I regularly frequented record stores — when there were plenty of record stores to frequent — I remember seeing artists sometimes release two versions of one of their singles. By way of illustration, perhaps the first example of this that I saw was this UK #1 from 1988:

And I thought that, for the purposes of this post, it might make sense to put out two versions.

The gist of both articles is the same, as is this introduction — up to the Subscribe button below. But I hope that, at least to some degree, the different versions of what is said in the latter part of each post might appeal to different people.

A link to the other version can be found at the end of this one.

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Further to these posts, which I view as being among the most important articles I have written…

Only connect

How to read the media

I read with interest this quotation from Theodore Dalrymple, a pseudonym of British psychiatrist Anthony Daniels:¹

In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control…

I find those words particularly striking in the context of recent years, for reasons I shall come to.

For context, Dalrymple describes himself as:

…[coming] from a long line of refugees: My mother was a refugee from Nazi Germany in 1938 and my father was East London Jewish.

And his father became a communist as a young man.

Dalrymple himself has worked as an inner-city GP and prison psychiatrist, and is a prolific author. And he has more experience than most of life in the likes of North Korea, Albania, Romania, Vietnam and Cuba, as documented in The Wilder Shores of Marx: Journeys in a Vanishing World:

He is thus well-qualified to comment on the nature of propaganda in communist societies.

The above quotation comes from his 2007 book Our Culture, What’s Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses. But it surely can be applied to propaganda of any sort. And if we encountered such propaganda in our own society, we might reasonably ask some questions about the true nature of that society.

Below are some thoughts on the quotation in the context of the covid era. I shall keep the discussion fairly brief, but I am inclined to think that, for the right author, there is enough potential material for a whole book on the subject.

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“The purpose of… propaganda [is] not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate…”

While I do not know exactly what was on the minds of those who were ultimately responsible for pushing the covid propaganda, I do think that much of what we saw is consistent with the notion that one of its purposes — if not its main purpose — was to humiliate.

I am reminded of this post…

The Chart of Coercion [2025 re-issue]

…on Biderman’s Chart of Coercion, and particularly the sections on degradation and enforcing trivial demands.

Is it not fair to say that, during the covid era, most of us were successfully propagandised and humiliated at least to some degree, even if we cannot yet bring ourselves to admit it? How many people are there who were not somewhat taken in by the propaganda? There are surely relatively few who never felt any fear, never took a covid test, never wore a face mask, and never took a “safe and effective” injection.

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“…and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better”

There are multiple ways in which the covid narrative did not correspond to reality, not least the fact that, according to data from the UK government’s Office for National Statistics (ONS)…

…featured in this post…

2020: before and after week 13

…prior to the announcement of lockdown, the number of people dying was at normal levels for the time of year. In contrast to two years earlier, when there were around 50,000 winter excess deaths in England and Wales, and… we carried on as usual.

And I am reminded of this presentation by Martin Neil, Professor of Computer Science and Statistics in the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London, UK…

[SPCI-7] "We’ve come to the conclusion... the evidence strongly supports that there was no pandemic"

…who concludes, having looked carefully at the evidence, that:

…the evidence strongly supports that there was no pandemic.

I cannot recall seeing anyone mounting a credible challenge to Prof Neil’s analysis, which fits with a lot of other data that I have seen.

This meme captures something of the spirit of the time:

As does this image:

“The less it corresponded to reality the better…”

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“When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies…”

I don’t know how many people would say that they were forced to remain silent during the covid era. But there was certainly strong pressure not to speak out.

I am reminded of the testimony of professors John Ioannidis and Jay Bhattacharya…

Death threats to top scientists questioning the covid narrative in 2020

…and some of my own experience, including in the context of church life, as discussed in this post:

A dark day

This paragraph from my recent article on Jeremiah 5…

An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely [and] my people love to have it so...

…also springs to mind:

Having even one person telling the truth can make a big difference. The effect of a single candle in an otherwise totally dark room springs to mind. But in times of deception, telling the truth is difficult. In words often attributed to George Orwell, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” And the covid era was as close to a time of universal deceit as I have ever known. I am reminded of articles such as this one [summarising the covid lies], and [of] Rev Dr William Philip’s [perceptive] comments on delusion and deception.

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“…or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves…”

Again, I don’t know how many people would say that they were forced to repeat the covid lies themselves. But most people didn’t need anything like forcing. The majority appeared to swallow the lies wholesale, and sometimes repeated them with little or no prompting, having been persuaded that what they were doing was in the interest of the greater good.

I am reminded of this section from C. S. Lewis’ God in the Dock (emphasis added):

My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position [imposing “the good”] would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under of robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some points be satiated; but those who torment us for their own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to heaven yet at the same time likely to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on the level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

And this Holocaust survivor, age 93, speaking at a 2021 anti-lockdown protest (transcript below, emphasis added):²

I am in fact a survivor of the Holocaust. And the worst thing I have to tell you… even then nobody told us it was done for our own good. We all knew what was happening. And when I think today, when I see people masked, I think of the yellow star, which gave everybody liberty to aggress me, to insult me, to call me a carrier of disease, to spit on me even.

I would like to tell you that this [covid era] is worse. It is more insidious. It concerns more people… There is a hypocrisy in the public narrative that is absolutely unbearable… to say that we are doing this to protect the old. I would [rather] die in a state that gives me freedom than live [with this].

I have already outstayed my welcome by living here, and my life expectancy is probably not great, but I would gladly exchange this for the lives and livelihoods and happiness of generations that come after me to live their lives as I have [done]. To have masks, to see people defile their children with masks, is something totally unbearable to me.

The two quotations above also relate to the main point of the quotation — the notion that the purpose of propaganda is to humiliate.

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“…they lose once and for all their sense of probity”

When lies are gradually and eventually revealed for what they are, it does not — to say the least — reflect well on those who have thoughtlessly parroted them, thinking that they are advancing the good and acting accordingly. Especially if others were warning them against that at the time. And particularly if those who parroted the lies held — and still hold — positions of authority where truthfulness and integrity are important: doctors and nurses… school and university leaders… middle and senior managers… church leaders… among others. At least to some degree, trust is broken, to say nothing of reputations. And the situation is made even worse if the deception caused a lot of unnecessary suffering, which it certainly has done in the context of the covid era.

It is thus perhaps not surprising that many people, and especially those in positions of authority, want to act as if the events of the covid era never happened. But to do so conveys at least the impression that they are callous and uncaring towards those who suffered — and in some cases are very much still suffering — as a result of the deception:

"The love of many will grow cold"

Many people, including many Christians, are thus now faced with a dilemma: acknowledge the deception, or cover up the lies.

If, prior to 2020, such a dilemma had been discussed in the abstract, e.g. in a sermon, or in the context of a homegroup Bible study, I think the consensus about how to respond would have been fairly clear. Christians are, after all, at least in theory, meant to be people who are walking in the truth.

I doubt that I could have envisaged anything like the extraordinary circumstances in which we now find ourselves…

I wonder how long it will be before the topic will be broached in sermons. And what the response will be when that happens.

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“To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself”

I find this part of what Dalrymple wrote particularly striking, not least because it comes from someone who is on record as saying he “cannot… assent to any kind of religious belief”.

What he says about “[becoming] evil oneself” reminds me of these words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (emphasis added):

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

I hope the fiendish nature of the covid era propaganda is already evident enough. It is surely consistent with the cunning of “that ancient snake called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray”… the “father of lies”… who “masquerades as an angel of light”.

But in the context of the (lack of) response to what has happened, I do genuinely wonder to what extent some church leaders (and church members) actually believe what the Bible says about lies, deception and the sinful human heart.

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

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“One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed”

At the church I attend, we are currently part way through a six week series in Romans, based around selected verses. And the first of those sermons featured Romans 1:18:³

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness…

The immediate context here is how people respond to what may be known about God (v19) but I was nevertheless struck by the broader notion of the wrath of God being revealed against people who suppress the truth.

I was also reminded of the way that God “gives people over” to the consequences of their sin, which is a repeated theme (v24, v26, v28) of the text (Romans 1:16-2:5) that was used for the reading and discussed in the sermon, a passage ends with these words:

…because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.

It has been extraordinary to observe the effects of the covid propaganda. I wonder how the experience will affect people’s behaviour in the future. And to what extent our standing to resist anything has, in Dalrymple’s words, been eroded, or even destroyed.

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“A society of emasculated liars is easy to control”

Those final words from the quotation remind me of the clip from former Labour MP Tony Benn featured in this post (partial transcript below):

Reflections on fear [2025 re-issue]

[Interviewer: It seems like it benefits the system if the average working person is shackled and in debt.]

[Benn] People in debt become hopeless. And hopeless people don’t vote… They always say everyone should vote. But I think if the poor in Britain or the United States turned out and voted for people who represented their interests it would be a real democratic revolution. And so they don’t want it to happen. So keeping people hopeless and pessimistic…

You see I think there are two ways in which people are controlled: first of all frighten people; and secondly demoralise them.

An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern. And I think there’s an element in the thinking of some people… [that] we don’t want people to be educated, healthy and confident, because they would get out of control.

The top 1% of the world’s population own 80% of the world’s wealth. It’s incredible that people put up with it. But they’re poor, they’re demoralised, they’re frightened. And therefore they think perhaps the safest thing to do is take orders and hope for the best.

I wonder what Benn would say if he were alive today. The vast majority of Western society in 2020 certainly appeared easy to control.

I am reminded of the role of the UK taxpayer-funded Behavioural Insights Team:

Behavioural insights

And these words of Prof Neil Ferguson in the context of the imposition of the first covid lockdown:

“I think people’s sense of what is possible in terms of control changed quite dramatically between January and March…”

He speaks of the context of the “innovative intervention” of China — locking entire communities down and not permitting them to leave their homes — and how the authorities initially presumed it would not be an available option in a liberal Western democracy:

“We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought… and then Italy did it. And we realised we could.”

I find the words “get away with it” quite striking. I wonder what was actually on Ferguson’s mind when he said that…

As to the people at large, I don’t think I would necessarily have chosen the phrase “emasculated liars” in the context of the covid era. But, on reflection, I wonder how far away those words are from being an accurate description of one element of what actually happened. It certainly appeared that society was rather more emasculated and controllable than most would have believed.

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It will be interesting — and instructive — to see what happens as more people begin to realise what actually happened. Australia seems somewhat ahead of the UK on this. I encourage you to listen to the three-minute clip at that link, and, if time permits, the six-minute conversation with a listener here, especially the last minute or so.

One consequence of being humiliated is that relatively few people even want to acknowledge it, let alone talk openly about it. The communist era propagandists — like the covid era behavioural psychologists — doubtless knew this all too well. Pride is an intrinsic part of human nature, and perhaps particularly so for those who are more highly educated and credentialed. And Christians are hardly immune from it.

It is one thing to make an error of judgement and act foolishly as discussed e.g. in James Thurber’s short story The Day the Dam Broke:

The Day the Dam Broke [2025 re-issue]

It is quite another for people to realise that they have been deliberately and mercilessly propagandised and humiliated, and that they have been duped into participating in the process — even if only by e.g. wearing a mask.

And it is particularly hard for those who have bought into the narrative without much careful thought but at what turned out to be great cost. I feel particularly for the many people who have been injured by covid injections. It cannot be easy to acknowledge that doing the thing that they thought would help — and perhaps regarded as “the right thing” to do — was actually a mistake that they now regret.

But sooner or later we need to face up to the reality of what has happened. I am reminded of Jesus’ comment to his disciples about knowing the truth, and the truth setting them free. While those words were spoken into a particular context, they surely have wider application. Not least in facilitating reconciliation and moving forward constructively.

As churches, and more broadly in society, we will eventually need to come to terms with what has been going on. And at least part of that process will surely need to involve people who have something of a public voice being willing to acknowledge publicly that we have been — and still are being — propagandised.

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Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices (Colossians 3:9)

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbour, for we are all members of one body. (Ephesians 4:22-25, emphasis added)

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Related:

Understanding Trauma (part 1)

Psychological abuse

The weakening of society

Stakeholder Communism? (the whole caboodle)

Apocalypse now

Abortion, totalitarianism and evangelism

That Hideous Strength: a deeper look at how the West was lost

The Trusted News Initiative

The great sorting?

A battle for truth

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Link to the other version of this post, which makes similar points in relation to gender issues.

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Dear Church Leaders homepage

Some posts, including a version of this one, can also be found on Unexpected Turns

Revealing Faith: Seeing and believing the revelation of God (to be published July/August 2025)

The Big Reveal: Christianity carefully considered as the solution to a problem

1. Charles Moore wrote in The Telegraph in 2004 that “Theodore Dalrymple, then writing under a different pseudonym, is the only writer I have ever chosen to publish on the basis of unsolicited articles”

2. Try this link if the other one doesn’t work, and you don’t have an X account

3. The other scheduled texts are: Romans 3:19-20, Romans 3:25, Romans 5:1, Romans 6:3 and Romans 11:33-34