Anti Vax and Anti Abortion use the Same Propaganda Techniques


There are two interesting words that are important but not easily mastered--I'm not sure I have done so. They are esoteric and exoteric. Slipping from one to the other is part of both anti vax and anti abortion. It might be easiest to start with anti vax.

Anti vax operatives, like the Green Congresswoman, start with esoteric information and convince themselves vaccines give people disease. Esoteric is information inside a group and not shared with a wider audience. The information she had that started her down the rabbit hole of false conclusions came from propaganda sources, not from legitimate medical sources. These not legitimate sources claim vaccines are giving people Covid and killing them. While there are unusual cases of people experiencing reactions to the medicine there is no source observing spread or death from vaccines.

Green and her blind followers were not content with being and esoteric group, however. They began public discussion of false information. In doing that they became an exoteric force. They have been so successful a huge swath of people refuses to be vaccinated. The old version of this is that if you repeat a lie over and over many people no longer consider it a lie.

Anti abortion has been doing the same thing. It has been repeating lies for several years and now seems to be having some success of people hearing lies and thinking they are truths. The best example is that one fertilized cell is a human being. This is ridiculous on its face. Then they claimed abortion is unsafe, though the record of safety is there for all to see. Only now is an effort being made to reverse is view which was formerly esoteric but became used exoterically. 

A similar attempt was used against black people. the esoteric view was black men lusted for white women. Other "inside" information used against black people was that they did not bath and were not as smart as white people. When slave holders and later segregationists tried to sell these ideas as exoteric they eventually were unsuccessful. A book written during the period of slavery, Uncle Tom's Cabin, had a fictional story of smart slaves manipulating not-as-smart white owners for the slaves' entertainment. Efforts were made to ban the book. 

Recognizing propaganda and making independent decisions is as important today as it ever has been.


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