I just take the marketing at face value
My son mentioned yesterday that they say the pledge of allegiance every day at school. I said, hey, that's something we have in common, because I had to say it every day growing up too. Then I explained propaganda to him. Let's say you're in power. Your job is a lot easier if everybody is on board with you. So you repeat a message over and over about how great everything is, regardless of if it's true. Like, do we actually live in a land "with liberty and justice for all"? Of course not. You don't have to be very old to see through that one. Then he mentioned that they sing, "My country tis of thee sweet land of liberty," every day and we laughed at how that doesn't even make grammatical sense any more.
The funny thing of course is that propaganda works sometimes. Repeat that message over and over again and under the right conditions, people will agree. There's probably some underlying physiological explanation, like hearing a repeated message strengthens the neural pathways for that message, especially if it's a message you kind of want to hear anyway, or something.
Anyway so now I'm thinking about propaganda. I like to frame it like a magic spell. The nature of this spell is you have to repeat it over and over again and eventually you kind of summon something. A desire to spend money on Packer's knick knacks, say. Propaganda usually refers to governments or organized religions or advertising campaigns. But it occurred to me that the underlying principle of repeating a message over and over to summon something works great on an interpersonal level. Like, when my kid stays over, I tuck him in and tell him I love him. It's a total propaganda campaign, but in this case, it's one we all believe in. We all think it's nice to tell kids on a more or less daily basis that they're loved. That's a dead simple and effective technique for creating a home where they feel loved and secure and, just maybe, more agreeable to going to bed on time.
I experienced an interpersonal propaganda campaign at work that I did not appreciate. At Google you're supposed to stay on your first project for a year and a half. The manager of my first project would sit me down on a weekly basis and tell me how much I sucked. He'd tell me I needed to be in the office 50 hour weeks or I'd get fired, that kind of thing. That was probably meant to get me to work harder, but it had the opposite effect. I hated him and his project because of his miserable propaganda campaign, so I never did work hard on it. During that time I wrote hundreds of essays and used up 400 yards of 5 foot wide canvas making art and hanging it in the office. That era was great for my art and fairly pointless for my engineering. I left as soon as I could. I'm much happier and harder working now with my new manager whose weekly message is more along the lines of, "I like you! You can do this!"
I had a revelation on my morning bike ride today. I've got a big ol' ego. No big surprise there. And just like Donald Trump's, it's fragile. Like any system, this ego has pros and cons. I can rely on it for hubris, and if Karaoke parties taught me anything, you can get surprisingly far on hubris. But it also means my feelings get hurt easy. So I need to keep that ego in good repair and use it constructively. Then it occurred to me that this is just the sort of emotional maintenance that romantic partners are good for. So I texted the girlfriend I spend most of my time with and asked, hey, could I ask a favor of you? Do you suppose you could just tell me I'm sexy on a daily basis? She laughed and said sure, she could totally do that because I am sexy. Wouldn't you know it, that made feel all gushy and right with the world. I think that will be good for me. I think regularly hearing the encouraging message that's right for me will help a lot of every day bullshit roll off my back.
My revelation is to know myself well enough to know what sorts of propaganda campaigns are constructive for me, and to just ask for them from appropriate people. The follow up revelation writes itself. I know and love a bunch of humans. What messages do they need to hear regularly? What positive things can I help summon simply by repeating myself?
The funny thing of course is that propaganda works sometimes. Repeat that message over and over again and under the right conditions, people will agree. There's probably some underlying physiological explanation, like hearing a repeated message strengthens the neural pathways for that message, especially if it's a message you kind of want to hear anyway, or something.
Anyway so now I'm thinking about propaganda. I like to frame it like a magic spell. The nature of this spell is you have to repeat it over and over again and eventually you kind of summon something. A desire to spend money on Packer's knick knacks, say. Propaganda usually refers to governments or organized religions or advertising campaigns. But it occurred to me that the underlying principle of repeating a message over and over to summon something works great on an interpersonal level. Like, when my kid stays over, I tuck him in and tell him I love him. It's a total propaganda campaign, but in this case, it's one we all believe in. We all think it's nice to tell kids on a more or less daily basis that they're loved. That's a dead simple and effective technique for creating a home where they feel loved and secure and, just maybe, more agreeable to going to bed on time.
I experienced an interpersonal propaganda campaign at work that I did not appreciate. At Google you're supposed to stay on your first project for a year and a half. The manager of my first project would sit me down on a weekly basis and tell me how much I sucked. He'd tell me I needed to be in the office 50 hour weeks or I'd get fired, that kind of thing. That was probably meant to get me to work harder, but it had the opposite effect. I hated him and his project because of his miserable propaganda campaign, so I never did work hard on it. During that time I wrote hundreds of essays and used up 400 yards of 5 foot wide canvas making art and hanging it in the office. That era was great for my art and fairly pointless for my engineering. I left as soon as I could. I'm much happier and harder working now with my new manager whose weekly message is more along the lines of, "I like you! You can do this!"
I had a revelation on my morning bike ride today. I've got a big ol' ego. No big surprise there. And just like Donald Trump's, it's fragile. Like any system, this ego has pros and cons. I can rely on it for hubris, and if Karaoke parties taught me anything, you can get surprisingly far on hubris. But it also means my feelings get hurt easy. So I need to keep that ego in good repair and use it constructively. Then it occurred to me that this is just the sort of emotional maintenance that romantic partners are good for. So I texted the girlfriend I spend most of my time with and asked, hey, could I ask a favor of you? Do you suppose you could just tell me I'm sexy on a daily basis? She laughed and said sure, she could totally do that because I am sexy. Wouldn't you know it, that made feel all gushy and right with the world. I think that will be good for me. I think regularly hearing the encouraging message that's right for me will help a lot of every day bullshit roll off my back.
My revelation is to know myself well enough to know what sorts of propaganda campaigns are constructive for me, and to just ask for them from appropriate people. The follow up revelation writes itself. I know and love a bunch of humans. What messages do they need to hear regularly? What positive things can I help summon simply by repeating myself?
I invented a good way to ask. I say, "Can you give me a message to carry around in my heart today?"
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