Disinformation is a new word in English, a few years younger than I. Both of us took a while to grow. I stopped growing – upward – before turning twenty. Disinformation, sick with gigantism, can’t stop growing, till it threatens to blot the sky.
Disinformation differs from propaganda. Propaganda entered the language in the seventeenth century, as the Catholic Church organized itself against Protestantism, its Christian rival. The word was wrested from the Latin verb meaning to propagate, get the word out. In Rome you can visit the exterior of the College of Propaganda, near the Spanish Steps, one of Borromini’s mind-bending masterpieces. It’s worth it, though you must crane your neck.
Propaganda is advertising: “the systematic dissemination of information, esp. in a biased or misleading way, in order to promote a particular cause or point of view,” per the OED, with its distinctive lilt. Ever notice how an exact definition can strike the ear as ironic, even sneering, as if to say, “That’s the official version, but you and I – wink, wink – know better”? Pope Urban VIII believed he was doing God’s work when he founded the College in 1628; today’s ad guys think the same when they overpraise toothpaste.
Disinformation differs subtly but urgently from propaganda. Propaganda means putting your best foot forward: eager swains are propagandists of a sort. Disinformation means maliciously lying, to mislead. Propaganda may be forgiven as an excess of zeal; disinformation is a crime, by any moral code.
Electronic communications, especially social media, have enkindled disinformation into a blinding blaze. Enemies treat disinformation as a valid weapon of war, authorizing departments to deploy it better, forcing more scrupulous nations to “fight fire with fire.” Lying was denounced in my boyhood, lest our mouths be “washed out with soap”. Not to lie is denounced today as dangerous naivete. The rule of the playground – if they do it, so can I – applies equally to the scrum of nations.
“The war between Israel and Hamas,” we read, from a responsible journalist, “is being fought, in part, through disinformation and competing claims.” About the savagery of Hamas’ initial attack, there can be no doubt: they meant their viciousness to be memorable, and they succeeded. About the war they provoked, confusion swirls. Are the Gazans victims or villains? Is Israel’s response proportionate or genocidal? Long-simmering hatreds explode into violence on campuses where free expression should be assured. Allegations ricochet. The demented proprietor of America’s leading social media platform weighs in against the Jews. War forces us to take sides – but where’s the truth!
The emasculation of truth is the calamity of modernity. How can we achieve community without trust? How can we soundly decide deluded by lies? Truth has many assassins, not just shameless politicians angling for power. Online miscreants hide behind “handles”. Thieves steal identities. Almost daily I am asked by a wary – and war-weary – friend, “Is this really you?”
A few heroic souls respond to confusion with resolution – to “get to the bottom” of things, find out “what’s really going on.” They weigh the evidence, assess probabilities, “make up” – as we say – “their own minds.” More of us cringe under the covers, clapping our ears to the cacophony, delegating our determination to others we trust. I trust Biden, Blinken and their associates; others trust Trump and his felonious confederates. I distrust Netanyahu, but Hamas more. I’m inclined to shut up about Gaza lest I misstep, but that would betray my trust – to you – to try to “see things through.”
Some might shrug, “Humans have been the lying species since our eviction from Eden.”
True. But not like this.