“Propaganda.” One must not just say the word but rather spit it out, exploding the Ps and coughing out the third syllable. That the word has become something of onomatopoeia speaks to its power. No one wants to be propagandized or manipulated, especially in an age when self-determination is considered all-important. But what exactly is it, and how do we steel ourselves against it? 

Jacques Ellul, whose mid-twentieth-century scholarship on propaganda remains a tour de force, defined it as “a manipulation of psychological symbols having goals of which the listener is not conscious.” Indeed, many luminaries on the subject come from the field of psychology, most notably Harold Lasswell, whose graduate education included a zealous tutelage under the Freudian psychoanalyst Theodor Reik. This should come as no surprise: the twentieth century was full of new tools for automating human functions, and elites looked for ways to bend the popular human psyche to the mastery of the few. Walter Lippmann addressed the situation in a chapter from Public Opinion entitled “Leaders and the Rank and File,” referring to propaganda as “the manufacture of consent.” For the purposes of this essay, here is a straightforward definition: Propaganda is calculated persuasion on a mass scale.  

We’re all subject to it. There was a time when only religious and state governing institutions had the scope of authority to wield propaganda successfully, and in a pre-technological age even that was dubious. (The word’s original derivation is from the Pope Gregory XV’s Office for the Propagation of the Faith—Congregatio de propaganda fide—tasked with evangelizing the New World.) It wasn’t until after the Great War and especially after World War II that propagandistic methods began to be used in democratic institutions, leading to today’s relentless barrage of coercive messaging from behemoth corporations and a growing collusion of public and private entities. Increased democratization of targeting methods, geofencing, and the like have given anyone with a knack and a keyboard some level of propagandizing power over a large portion of the population. 

On one hand, propaganda is most easily identified in its natural habitat. When mainstream media outlets parrot all the same lines in support of your opponent, you call it out. This kind of propaganda seems foolish and obvious. But what about when you’re the target? Propaganda can possess us without our knowledge or consent. It can bend our will to its own and leave us in the blissful, but dangerous, delusion that we are above it all.  

So how can we resist it? Below are seven steps you can take to propaganda-proof your life. 

1. Accept Reality

The reality is that you, your mind, and your conscience are a commodity to be bought and sold. There is no neutral day. Every minute, some individual or entity better resourced than yourself is seeking to drive your actions and beliefs. And they’ll do it without your knowledge or consent. Saying so is not a fatalistic statement or fodder for despair. It’s just a reality, and you’re not going to resist propaganda without acknowledging that it follows you everywhere and is always clamoring at your door. Step one is not to live in denial of this fact.  

2. Create Habits of Personal Discipline

A house built on a solid foundation is not easily shaken. As the Gospel of Luke says, “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” Lack of discipline blinds us to evil and metastasizes it. The solidity and stability that come from habits of personal discipline guard us from propaganda. There are many useful kinds of discipline: 

• Moral discipline: Develop your moral compass and live true to it. Let everything else be judged in light of what you know is true.  

• Discipline over time: Don’t let idleness give a foothold to the enemy. Even leisure may be exercised intentionally in a way that opens you to the right influence.  

• Physical discipline: Strength in one area begets strength elsewhere. The flesh may be weak, but it was not created that way and is redeemable, and it can be used for good if channeled appropriately. Physical discipline includes both input and output.  

Discipline internalizes ideals and makes them part of who you are. Disciplined people are tough to penetrate with propaganda because they have trained themselves to resist temptation in its many lesser forms and guard their hierarchy of goods. Drawing from Steven Pressfield’s praise of the Spartans, discipline aids in “performing the commonplace under uncommonplace conditions,” the uncommonplace, in our case, being billions of dollars of domestic psychological warfare. 

3. Become a Student of History

Knowledge will not save you, but the pursuit of knowledge with good intent will lead to understanding. Propaganda finds its victories in the sudden, visceral attacks, often using sensory, aesthetic tools, that compel subjects in a single moment to favor what lies before them rather than giving heed to what they already know. Knowing history and thinking historically allows you to resist imminency and think in context. Most things have been tried before and most methods of persuasion are not new under the sun, and your familiarity with the hearts and behavior of human beings throughout history will equip you with the understanding to resist the temptations of propaganda.

4. Read Books

Propaganda seizes the moment. It uses the events of the day or the feelings of the moment to manipulate the thoughts and actions of victims before they have a chance to think. Books, on the other hand, have three unique qualities:

1. Published books are at least months (more likely years) removed from the event or discovery they seek to analyze. This allows their authors time to gain perspective. 

2. A book must go beyond punchy talking points, filling pages with context for the topic it claims to elucidate.  

3. Between publication and reading, endless critics try their hand at supporting or disproving the claims of the book. Its weaknesses likely have been exposed and strengths magnified by the time you read it.  

For all these reasons, use books as a firewall against the immediacy of propaganda. If you seek to understand something, don’t rely solely on articles and media analysis. Some of these are helpful, but some are the tools of propaganda itself. This is not to say books cannot be propagandistic in nature and intent. Every medium can be a carrier, but regularly reading books will allow you to devote more attention to each issue you study and will turn you into an active learner, not a passive vessel.  

5. Surround Yourself with Beauty

Beauty, in its many forms, is an antiseptic to ugliness and the manipulation of creation. By surrounding yourself with beauty, you cultivate a longing for it. When you stand within churches and concert halls and before masterpieces, or drift between well-written pages, you learn to gratefully acknowledge your place as an inheritor of a living culture, not a demigod crafting your own world, a prideful approach that is easy for propagandists to turn to their own ends.

Importantly, beauty and discipline walk hand in hand. As Friedrich Schiller said, “Strength must allow itself to be bound by the Graces, and the defiant lion submit to Cupid’s bridle.” Surround yourself by beauty, and you will strengthen your foothold against anyone who wants you to sacrifice permanency for passing solicitation.  

6. Don’t Enter the Lions’ Dens

It’s commonly accepted wisdom that alcoholics shouldn’t hang out in bars. When one is prone to temptation of a certain sort, it is best to avoid the dwelling place of that temptation. We’re all prone to falling for propaganda. To resist it, stay away from its hotspots. Restrain your presence on social media, don’t linger in malls, pick your educational institutions carefully, don’t feed your data to websites and email distribution lists that will target your email inbox with endless spam, and wherever necessity forces you to engage on these fronts, proceed with utmost caution. Wantonly surround yourself by propaganda without guardrails and antidotes standing nearby, and you will find yourself the victim. Propaganda will find you easily enough. Don’t seek it out.

7. Proceed with Courage and Confidence

The battle is not lost. Life is a grand struggle, and the fact that resisting propaganda is part of that struggle is not a thing to despair over but to assert authority over. You can win this battle, and when you do, you will be one of the few who does. In a world turning on the axis of propaganda, you will be able to step back, take in the whole picture, and choose your next steps wisely. The halls of history itself are filled with encouragement and guidance. Institutions stand as pillars and buttresses to support you, order your passions and impulses, and make you stand strong. As a part of history, these are part of your inheritance. Every tool you need is available if you look. Truth is stronger than deception, and it will win in the end.

In his 1928 book Propaganda, Edward Bernays paints an eerie picture of modern life: “We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. . . . It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.”

Victims fall into this trap, cede their tastes, and get used by others. Victors steel themselves against this temptation and live the life they were born to live. Be a victor, not a victim. Propaganda-proof your life.