How Putin’s propaganda harms the West

Summary

Este video revela el impacto sorprendentemente efectivo de la propaganda rusa en Occidente. La propaganda rusa busca despolitizar a las personas y fomentar la inacción política, generando desconfianza en la verdad y fomentando la incoherencia y la saturación informativa. El objetivo es hacer ingobernables las democracias occidentales exacerbando las divisiones internas. Para contrarrestar esto, es crucial reconocer y desafiar esta propaganda sin perder la calma, centrarse en resolver problemas domésticos y fortalecer nuestras democracias mediante reformas y promoción del bien público.

Takeaways

• 🎯 La propaganda rusa busca despolitizar a las personas y fomentar la inacción política.
• 🤯 A diferencia de la propaganda soviética, la propaganda rusa es post-verdad y se enfoca en sembrar dudas sobre la verdad.
• 🌀 La propaganda rusa utiliza volúmenes altos de mensajes inconsistentes para confundir y saturar.
• 💡 La propaganda rusa explota las motivaciones internas de las personas en lugar de intentar cambiar sus ideologías.
• 🏛️ El objetivo de la propaganda rusa es hacer que las democracias occidentales sean ingobernables exacerbando sus divisiones internas.
• 🔄 Desde la invasión de Ucrania, la propaganda rusa ha combinado la propaganda de post-verdad con la de realidad alterna.
• 🌍 La propaganda rusa es un problema orgánico y se exacerba por la fragmentación social, los medios sociales y la falta de solidaridad.
• ⚖️ Es crucial distinguir entre las crisis democráticas internas y la interferencia extranjera para evitar respuestas autodestructivas.
• 🛡️ Enfrentar la propaganda rusa requiere fortalecer nuestras democracias a través de reformas electorales, justicia social y acción contra la polarización.
• 🌐 Debemos ser proactivos en la guerra de información, institucionalizando un desafío informativo contra el Kremlin en todos los niveles.

Q & A

¿Cuál es el principal objetivo de la propaganda rusa según el video?

El principal objetivo de la propaganda rusa es despolitizar a las personas y hacer que las democracias occidentales sean ingobernables, fomentando la apatía política y la duda sobre la verdad.

¿En qué se diferencia la propaganda rusa de la propaganda soviética?

La propaganda soviética buscaba crear una realidad alternativa coherente, mientras que la propaganda rusa moderna es post-verdad, diseñada para fomentar la inacción y la desconfianza en la posibilidad de conocer la verdad.

¿Cuáles son los cuatro pilares centrales de la propaganda rusa según el video?

Los cuatro pilares centrales son: la duda sobre la verdad misma, la falta de consistencia en los mensajes, la saturación de volumen con múltiples posiciones incompatibles, y la internalidad motivacional, que manipula las motivaciones ya existentes de las personas.

¿Cómo la propaganda rusa busca despolitizar a las personas?

Busca despolitizar a las personas convenciendo de que participar en política es una mala idea y fomentando la creencia de que es imposible saber qué es verdad, lo que lleva a la apatía política.

¿Qué cambio ha ocurrido en la propaganda rusa desde la invasión a gran escala de Ucrania?

Desde la invasión a gran escala de Ucrania, la propaganda rusa ha vuelto en un 20-30% a la propaganda de realidad alternativa soviética, mientras que el resto sigue siendo propaganda post-verdad.

¿Cuál es el mayor daño que la propaganda rusa busca causar en las democracias occidentales?

El mayor daño es provocar una respuesta autodestructiva en las democracias occidentales, haciendo que el pánico y la reacción exagerada al respecto de la propaganda rusa causen más daño que la propaganda misma.

¿Cómo la propaganda rusa se aprovecha de los sentimientos de los ciudadanos occidentales?

La propaganda rusa se aprovecha de sentimientos como la inseguridad, la impotencia, la traición y la opacidad para fomentar la desconfianza y la apatía hacia las instituciones políticas.

¿Cuál es la diferencia entre los emprendedores políticos y los populistas post-verdad según el video?

Los emprendedores políticos buscan el avance personal incluso a costa de romper el juego democrático, mientras que los populistas post-verdad no solo mienten, sino que renuncian a la coherencia interna de sus mentiras, difuminando la diferencia entre la verdad y la mentira.

¿Qué recomienda el video hacer para contrarrestar la propaganda rusa?

El video recomienda no ceder a la narrativa del Kremlin, no descontextualizar lo que dicen otros ciudadanos o expertos, y centrarse en solucionar los problemas domésticos que la propaganda rusa intenta exacerbar.

¿Por qué es importante no confundir el volumen de interferencia rusa con su eficacia?

Es importante porque intentar no es lo mismo que tener éxito. La intervención de Rusia en las elecciones de 2016 en Estados Unidos fue notable por su incompetencia, y enfocarse en las causas domésticas de nuestros problemas nos hace más resilientes a la propaganda del Kremlin.

Outlines

00:00

🔍 El impacto de la propaganda rusa en Occidente

Este video explora el impacto sorprendentemente efectivo de la propaganda rusa en las democracias occidentales. Se diferencia entre la propaganda rusa y la soviética, destacando que la propaganda rusa moderna es postverdad, diseñada para fomentar la inacción política. Se detallan los cuatro pilares de la propaganda de Putin: la duda sobre la verdad, la inconsistencia, la saturación de mensajes y la manipulación de las motivaciones personales.

05:00

🌐 Propaganda rusa: una enfermedad política global

La propaganda rusa no es solo una herramienta del Kremlin, sino una enfermedad política orgánica que afecta a todo el mundo. La política occidental enfrenta nuevos tipos de políticos: el emprendedor político y el populista postverdad. Estos últimos no solo mienten, sino que erosionan la diferencia entre verdad y mentira. La crisis de confianza en las instituciones políticas se ve exacerbada por varios factores, incluidos los efectos desinhibidores de las redes sociales y las ideologías de autorrealización.

10:04

🌀 El daño autoinfligido por la propaganda rusa

El mayor daño de la propaganda rusa es que busca desencadenar una respuesta autodestructiva en las democracias occidentales. Si nos obsesionamos con la interferencia rusa, podríamos causar más daño del que la interferencia misma provoca. La propaganda del Kremlin se beneficia si confundimos los problemas internos con la interferencia externa y dejamos de participar en la regeneración democrática.

15:05

🗳️ Putin, Trump y las elecciones de 2024

La posición del Kremlin respecto a las elecciones estadounidenses de 2024 ha cambiado. Ahora prefieren que Trump gane, ya que creen que él fomentará la ingobernabilidad y debilitará el apoyo a Ucrania. Sin embargo, no están completamente optimistas debido a las decepciones de su primer mandato. Se concluye que para contrarrestar la propaganda rusa, debemos fortalecer nuestras democracias mediante reformas y una mayor participación ciudadana.

Keywords

💡Propaganda

Propaganda se refiere a la difusión de información, especialmente de naturaleza tendenciosa o engañosa, con el propósito de promover una causa política. En el video, se discute cómo la propaganda rusa influye en las democracias occidentales al fomentar la apatía política y la desconfianza hacia la verdad.

💡Postverdad

El término postverdad describe una situación en la que los hechos objetivos son menos influyentes en la formación de la opinión pública que las apelaciones a la emoción y a las creencias personales. La propaganda rusa se describe como postverdad porque busca sembrar dudas sobre la verdad misma, desincentivando la participación política.

💡Despolitización

La despolitización es el proceso de reducir la participación y el interés en la política. La propaganda rusa fomenta la despolitización al convencer a las personas de que participar en la política es inútil y que la verdad es inalcanzable, lo que lleva a la inacción política.

💡Pilares de la propaganda

Los cuatro pilares de la propaganda rusa según el video son: la duda sobre la verdad, la incoherencia, la saturación de volumen, y la internalidad motivacional. Estos pilares trabajan juntos para desestabilizar la percepción de la realidad y promover la despolitización.

💡Incoherencia

La incoherencia se refiere a la estrategia de presentar múltiples narrativas contradictorias. La propaganda rusa utiliza esta táctica para confundir y desorientar al público, impidiendo que las personas formen una comprensión clara y coherente de los eventos políticos.

💡Saturación de volumen

La saturación de volumen es la táctica de inundar el espacio informativo con una gran cantidad de mensajes contradictorios. Esto se utiliza para desbordar y abrumar a la audiencia, dificultando la identificación de la verdad.

💡Internalidad motivacional

La internalidad motivacional se refiere a la estrategia de basarse en las motivaciones existentes de las personas para manipular sus creencias y comportamientos. La propaganda rusa no intenta cambiar la ideología de las personas, sino utilizar lo que ya les motiva para sembrar caos y desconfianza.

💡Ungobernabilidad

La ingobernabilidad es el objetivo de la propaganda rusa al interferir en las democracias occidentales. Al exacerbar las divisiones existentes y fomentar la desconfianza y la apatía, buscan hacer que los sistemas políticos sean difíciles de gobernar.

💡Colapso de la seriedad

El colapso de la seriedad se refiere a la pérdida de seriedad en la política occidental, que la propaganda rusa explota. Este colapso facilita la proliferación de políticos emprendedores y populistas postverdad, quienes agravan la desconfianza y la división.

💡Populismo postverdad

El populismo postverdad es una forma de política donde la verdad es irrelevante y los políticos no intentan mantener la coherencia en sus mentiras. Este tipo de populismo aprovecha la desconfianza en las instituciones políticas y contribuye a la desestabilización democrática.

Highlights

The video reveals the unreasonably effective impact of Russian propaganda in the West.

Russian propaganda aims to make democracies ungovernable by fostering depoliticization.

The distinction between Soviet and Russian propaganda: Soviet propaganda created an alternate reality, while Russian propaganda promotes post-truth and inaction.

Russian propaganda tries to instill two minimal political opinions: politics is foolish, and the truth is unknowable.

The four central pillars of Russian propaganda are: doubt about truth, inconsistency, saturation, and motivational internality.

Russian propaganda converts the human thirst for truth into resistance to accepting anything as true.

It uses inconsistency to spread multiple conflicting messages about events, creating confusion.

Saturation involves flooding the media with numerous incompatible narratives.

Motivational internality manipulates existing motivations and ideologies rather than changing them.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian propaganda has shifted to include Soviet-style alternate reality propaganda for Russians.

Russian propaganda is an organic political disease, not just a Kremlin tool, and is amplified by the collapse of seriousness in Western politics.

Post-truth populists and political entrepreneurs in the West exacerbate the effects of Russian propaganda.

The Kremlin's aim is to make Western societies ungovernable by exploiting and exacerbating existing divisions.

Freaking out about Russian interference can do more harm than the interference itself, as it triggers self-destructive responses.

To counter Russian propaganda, Western democracies need to focus on domestic renewal and not overreact to external threats.

Transcripts

in this video we will reveal the

unreasonably effective impact of Russian

propaganda in the west the impact of

Russian propaganda on you and me and our

democracies will bring out the biggest

impact of Russian propaganda most people

do not grasp and the cost of us not

understanding what that is we'll talk

about how Russian propaganda tries to

make our democracies

ungovernable and about how Western

politicians sometimes seem to borrow

techniques from Russian propaganda but

before that we've got to make sure that

we're all at least baby experts in

propaganda so we got to go to baby

propaganda class and start by

distinguishing Russian propaganda from

Soviet

propaganda I grew up in the ussar and

there the propaganda you got was

alternate reality propaganda my school

told me to love Lenin more than my

parents this was falsehood pedal atud

designed to persuade you of a coherent

alternate picture of reality this is

very different to Russian propaganda

Russian propaganda is not alternate

reality propaganda Russian propaganda is

posttruth propaganda it's designed to

persuade you not into an opinion but

into inaction into not doing politics

Russian propaganda asks you to not have

political opinions but it wants you to

have two minimal opinions about

political iCal opinions first

participating in politics is a bad idea

only a fool does that private freedom is

good but public freedom is for idiots

this is an extreme project of

depoliticization the second opinion is a

back of the napkin theory of Truth which

says who knows what if anything is true

which is of course a self-refuting

position to understand this more deeply

let's look at what I take to be the four

Central pillars of Russian putini

propaganda the first pillar of Putin's

propaganda is doubt about truth itself

here we get to the heart of how this

propaganda works it wants to convert The

Thirst each human has for truth into

resistance to accepting that anything is

true it exploits your desire not to get

duped by politics to get you to doubt

everything about politics and eventually

doubt the very possibility of acquiring

Tru ful beliefs about politics at all to

apply this pillar to a terrible thing

Russia does in Ukraine their defense

won't be this isn't true we didn't do it

but nobody can really know what's true

the second pillar of Russian propaganda

is foregoing of consistency about a

terrible thing in Ukraine the Kremlin

might pedal two incompatible messages it

didn't happen and it happened but

somebody else did it the third pillar of

Russian propaganda is set saturation

volume flooding about a terrible thing

done in Ukraine this might mean not

taking two but eight incompatible

positions it didn't happen somebody else

did it it was staged we did it but we

were forced to Ukraine did it NATO did

it the planet Saturn did it the planet

Saturn didn't do it but its rings did

the fourth pillar of Russian propaganda

is motivational internality think of

this as the maxim that a person is only

going to be motivated by what already

motivates them unlike Soviet propaganda

Russian propaganda doesn't want to put

into your head something that isn't

already there it wants to start with

what already motivates you and then

manipulate that it's not trying to

change your ideology it's helping you

spin out of control via your own

ideological logic interfering in our

democracies the kremlin's aim is not to

take sides in our politics but to make

our political systems

ungovernable by exacerbating what

already divides us ungovernability is

the aim at this point we need to

recognize that Putin's propaganda has

changed in the way that affects Russians

but doesn't affect us in the west since

the fullscale invasion of Ukraine

Russian propaganda has moved 20 or 30%

back to Soviet style alternate reality

propaganda the content of this

propaganda isn't Soviet after all the

Soviet Union was a distorted hardle

regime and Putin's regime is a fascisti

hard right tyranny but the form is

Soviet it is alternate reality

propaganda 70% of the time the Kremlin

now tells Russians believe nothing and

nobody not even us 30% of the time it

now says do believe us after all we have

an ideology to sell you this is

happening because Russia is a fasis zed

regime without a fasis ised population

the regime knows that this disbalance is

unsustainable but it doesn't know how to

change it when to change it and whether

changing is something that it can

control to sum up for us it's posttruth

propaganda for Russians It's a

combination of posttruth propaganda and

alternate reality propaganda before we

get to the biggest harm that Russian

propaganda does that most people don't

understand we have to spend some time

think thinking about the word organic

Russian propaganda isn't just a tool of

the Kremlin it's a species of an organic

political disease circulating around the

world with a collapse of seriousness in

Western politics we increasingly see two

new breeds of politician here at home

the political entrepreneur and more

destructively the posttruth populist the

political entrepreneur serves the

political landscape for personal

advancement then on out to positively

break the Democratic game but if that is

the consequence of self- advancement so

be it these politicians are frequently

Liars they see politics in purely

instrumental terms and they justify the

social harm their very presence in

politics do by appealing to the language

of personal self-realization and the

pursuit of authenticity post truth

populists are different from political

entrepreneurs because they are not Liars

Liars obscure particular truths

post-truth populists obscure the

difference between truth and lies itself

politicians have always lied but what's

different about post-truth populists

isn't that they lie but they have

consciously given up on trying to make

their lies internally consistent

post-truth politics is not politicians

lying post-truth politics is a kind of

co- conspiracy between politician and

citizen in which both parties half agree

that truth doesn't matter matter

post-truth populists flourish where

citizens experience what I call the four

big feelings of distrust here they are

from least to most worrying one is

feeling unsafe which goes with the

thought that your political institutions

are incompetent you are in unsafe hands

the second is feeling powerless this

goes with the thought that there is

nothing you can do to inflect the

political process you reach out to touch

politics but you can't touch it the

third is feeling betrayed which goes

with the thought that your political

institutions prioritize others over you

thereby making them evil and fourth we

have the worst feeling the feeling of

opacity which goes with the thought that

you can no longer see politics your

political institutions no longer make

sense this is a lapse into magical

thinking which makes you not mind if

your political institutions get

destroyed because they don't makes sense

anyway the causes of this crisis range

from one the untethering of communal

Bonds in our societies to the

disinhibiting and atomizing effect of

social media three mechanisms of

exclusion and four ideologies of

self-realization which give up on

solidarity and the public good

everything we've described is organic in

the sense that it would still be

happening if the malign actors

interfering in our democracies vanished

off the face of the Earth but they

haven't vanished they're trying to

exploit and exacerbate our Democratic

incapacity for their purposes we want

them to lose but at the moment we might

be losing it's now that we come to the

biggest harm Russian propaganda does

that most people do not

recognize the harm Russian propaganda

seeks to do to Western democracies is

DIY harm Russian propaganda is

unreasonably effective because because

it seeks to trigger a self-destructive

response on our part which if we want to

save our democracies we've got to stop

they want us to freak out about their

interference so dramatically that our

freak out about the interference does

more harm than the interference itself

the Kremlin wants the architects of the

damage to our democracies to be not just

people who parrot Russian propaganda but

you and me people who might lose their

cool because they're worried about

Russian propaganda and interference the

Kremlin wins if we lose our capacity to

tell apart homegrown Democratic crisis

from malign foreign interference and the

Kremlin wins more if we lose not just

that capacity but our capacity to engage

in Democratic regeneration because we

think our problems are externally caused

a product of malign foreign interference

and therefore do not need a fix the

Kremlin wins if we lapse into magical

thinking and ourselves become conspiracy

theorists by taking problem s that are

95% homegrown and 5% Kremlin exaggerated

and seeing them as 5% homegrown and 95%

Kremlin caused without evidence because

like a conspiracy theorist we think that

the evidence that really matters is

evidence that is not visible to the

eye now we need to make a comment about

Trump and Putin's position on the 2024

us election because it has changed since

2016 the power play between the two

alpha males was more mut in 2016 the

crimin didn't necessarily want Trump to

win they themselves fell for the

mainstream illusion that Trump couldn't

win they backed him as a disruptor

hoping for a more divided USA and a

weakened Hillary but in 2024 they want

Trump to win because they believe he is

their best bet for ungovernability and

weakness on Ukraine the Kremlin do feel

burned by Trump they think that in his

first term he failed to generate an

elite around him and got coopted in to

policies that the Kremlin thinks were

tough on Russia so their preference for

Trump is clear but not

euphoric what do we do about all of this

we don't have 4 hours so this is what I

want to say to you as a fellow Western

citizen as a political philosopher and

as a minor public intellectual number

one let's not be taka Carlson let's not

buy Kremlin siren songs about how

they're offering a civilizational

alternative to a DEC West when they say

this it's a blend of political

technology and mystical obscurantism

Russia doesn't offer a trer alternative

of conservative values in fact its main

fault is that it is a hellscape of hyp

neoliberal values Russia does not offer

an anti-colonial alternative to us

hemony if you're worried about us

imperialism you should be worried about

Russian imperialism more because it has

nothing to offer except violence and a

mystical vision of of Russia's

self-propulsion at the expense of the

world number two let's not allow the

Kremlin to dictate the terms of debate

in the west one way of helping the

Kremlin is to seed to them conceptual

ground the Kremlin wants supporters of

Ukraine to accuse each other of being

Russian sympathizers so if you support

Ukraine but you're going around calling

everything you disagree with a Russian

narrative you may be helping Russian

propaganda number three let's not

decontextualize what fellow citizens or

experts or politicians say when academic

Smith says we need a better strategy

because Russia is strong don't be

activist Jones who comes along and says

Smith is a Russian bootlicker what Jones

does is disgraceful they

decontextualized Smith and

recontextualized him in a context that

was never there instead trust that you

win by thinking freely and being

truthful more than you win by winning

number four Let's Not freak out about

our domestic problems it's in part as a

counter to Russian propaganda that I

repeatedly say that our democracies are

heading out of the bay into open ocean

but that they will not sink the Kremlin

narrative that our democracies are not

real and that they will collapse is not

just the kremlin's judgment and the

kremlin's tactic it's the kremlin's

theory of victory over us their Dogma is

that we will do most of the work

ourselves they expect polarized Western

societies to dig their own Graves until

Putin's push to dissolve NATO by

exposing Article 5 Need No More Than A

nudge number five let's not confuse the

volume of Russian interference with

efficacy trying is not succeeding

Russia's intervention in the 2016 US

election was distinctive for being

incompetent number six focusing on the

domestic causes of our troubles which

the Kremlin seeks to exacerbate makes us

more resilient to Kremlin propaganda the

Kremlin wins if we become ungovernable

the Kremlin loses if we renew our

democracies by reforming electoral

systems by reforming political parties

by bringing politics closer to citizens

in their communities by tackling

inequality by putting solidarity in the

public good and not identity politics at

the center of our social justice agenda

by taking action on the crisis of

Civility and atomization that social

media causes this homework immunizes us

from Russian propaganda and allows us to

recognize Russian interference without

freaking out about it as we recognize

Kremlin propaganda for what it is we

need to challenge it there is an

information war going on and we need to

play it offensively and not just

defensively we have to fund and better

institutionalize a proactive

informational challenge to the Kremlin

at home abroad and on the Russian space

it is a problem that the Kremlin are

trying to politicize our space but we

are not trying or even thinking much

about politicizing theirs a key theme of

this talk has been the sense of

political responsibility of an effective

citizen thinking about political

responsibility is crucial for us to

understand that notion more watch this

video next provocatively titled why all

Russians are responsible for Putin's War