Catholics of the World Unite!

No, this is not going go be a blog promoting liberation theology, or holding hands at Mass, or increased education in Latin. This blog is for you, my fellow Catholics who have a desire to do the right thing, and are vaguely aware of some sort of culture war. Again, No! I don't mean between East and West, or between Christianity and Islam, I mean within our culture. You who see how our country and even our Church has changed over the past decades and are outraged--OUTRAGED!--at ... well, you know, them. The "them" that's opposed to "us". And you want to spread the Truth.

I feel the same way, but I also feel something else. I feel frustration at you--and myself--for being so naive about how this type of thing works. We tend to think that the truth has an inherent magical power of attraction and that if it were only heard, people would see reason. My question is: has that worked?? For $1,000,000, my final answer is: No.

Our American government is an experiment to see whether a free society is a better forum for people to discover truth than authoritarianism. Argument by authority, even if the authority is trustworthy, is still the weakest form of knowledge--we must know by exploring issues through vigorous, honest debate. As Americans we just know this somehow.

But just because we come to truth by open debate doesn't mean there are not movements and currents under the surface that affect, manipulate, even set the agenda for public discussion. As Americans we don't like to think that such "underhanded" things such as propaganda and psychological warfare should effect the shining white ideal of truthful debate -- and because we don't like to think about it, we allow ourselves to be completely blind to the workings of those who very much like to think about and use such methods.

Some readers may be anecdotally aware of the influence of such people as Margaret Sanger, Antonio Gramsci, and other leftist thinkers on society. My plan for this blog space is to document such influences: to look more systematically at the thought of people who are largely influential but just as largely unknown, to look carefully at the official literature of influential groups in society such as the NEA and Planned Parenthood, and to trace substantial connections between the two.

Why should we do this? How specifically can this benefit faithful Catholics, especially those in positions relating to communications, catechesis, education, or any other Catholic that ever has occasion to communicate with another member of our American society? Two reasons. First: Freedom of Choice! The best and easiest tactic of counterpropaganda is simply to draw attention to propaganda as such. Perspective on why someone says something can turn potential influence on its head, and allows the target audience to make a more fully informed decision.

Second reason: To learn from them. These influences that we deem so insidious -- they're insidious because of the nature of the ideas (whether they be atheist, socialist, morally relativist, etc.). They are not insidious because of the methods used to promulgate them.

I'm not talking about killing people and forcing people to pretend outwardly that they agree with the Party Line. I'm talking about soft power, deliberate strategies designed to influence ideas, feelings, attitudes, social memory, even commercial preferences. Remember that vague sense of outrage you said you shared with me several paragraphs ago? That itself is proof that these people's methods have worked.

That means we need to use them.

Our devotion to truth asks nothing less of us. If we are committed to serving Truth, it means we place our whole selves in its service: including our God-given reason and ability to strategize and out-think the opposing generals in this war of ideas. Christ Himself commanded this: it is not enough to be innocent as doves, we must also be cunning as serpents.