PROPAGANDA? WHY?
By Alex Ness
August 20, 2026
STATE INFORMATION UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
In extreme situations, the authority in charge of safety often assumes responsibility for the sharing of information. Sometimes it holds back on information, considering the damage to morale, to their point of view, or to the safety of people moved by false information or molded information. The better the information is baked into the item of news, by whoever has released it, the more it will have an impact upon those exposed to it.
It has gone on for centuries, actually, millennia. In fact, upon many stones it has been etched a version of an event that maybe didn't happen, or didn't happen in the way the narrator would like you to believe.
For instance, I disagree with modern experts who seek to erase any victory by the Egyptian army under the leadership of Pharaoh Ramses II. His tomb memorials declared the event of the battle of Kadesh to be a perfect case of victory, of extraordinary valor, and success achieving the Egyptian army's aims. Modern history readers have tried to deflate that balloon of bluster. But it wasn't as if the enemy at Kadesh, the Hittites didn't do the same kind of exalted words of greatness.
At Kadesh a large army of four groups led by the Pharaoh and his chariot using elite bodyguard, were moving along the coast of the Mediterranean sea to Kadesh, a site in Syria built up and walled. It was here that Ramses II had wanted to make a display of power, and restore the territory to Egyptian control. That couldn't be done, because as the chariots and first army group arrived, a mass surprise ambush of Hittite chariots burst through a nearby area of rough and shrubs, and crashed through the newly arriving remainder army groups. It required the chariots of Ramses II and his body guard to respond, destroying many of the enemy's ambush chariot squad. On the walls of his monuments Ramses II had written of his gallantry, and powerful impact. But Kadesh was not regained, and Egypt did not win a victory. It might have achieved a bloody punishment to the Hittites, but they did not, in the end, give up the land Pharaoh had come to take. Did Ramses II fail? Not like the modern voices would say, many sounding like their feelings were hurt for the propaganda trying to mislead them. It was something done, if not fully achieved, rather painfully ending in a draw. Few would dare to invite Ramses II's wrath with a second battle.
But, both sides of the story? State secrets, important information is not always wrong, sometimes it was important to beat the drum, to move a people from one passive view, to that of an active one. Other times it is about clarifying reasons, and making clear the reason to be willing to support war, the most destructive action of a nation.
The four sets of propaganda works from the Second World War shown below feature something disturbing. It is more than saying, our side is right, The Empire of Japan and the United States of America both use racism and demonizing of the enemy in their posters. The Nazis and British Empire used inspirational images and words to encourage and inspire determined entry on the side of the maker of the poster art. I suspect that both Nazi Germany and the United Kingdom and the British Empire had already been to war, heavily, in the previous 20 years. Therefore, maybe it wasn't so easy to demonize and much easier to lead others into the fight for the life of the nation in question in those cases.
SOME GREAT BOOKS ABOUT THE SUBJECT
Some use neutral language about books about propaganda. They call it media regarding the conflict. Or such. But the books shown below include some of the best written and cultivated in the subject. While many aim at Nazi propaganda, which is fine, it is important to point out, not only did the Nazis use it, they used it against the enemy, for the state, and to use as force to use force against the enemies within.
John Dower has written many excellent works, as has Saburo Ienaga, about just how the war was practiced. In fact, while the Nazis pretended to use logic, the Japanese and Americans cast aside all reason and logic faced with the war at hand. Learning how both sides saw the conflict as a contest of racial parameters. The dimensions of the war led to horrible war crimes, and use of tactics that have since been illegalized in the rules of war. This is less to say what not to read, if done well all works can help achieve a narrative. But those works that are aimed at a narrower focus might miss some other issues that weren't included. It is true that ideologies can infect propaganda, so if one reads about propaganda from a Left wing or Right wing perspective, the information may still be true, but stained a bit by going into the paradigms of power and economic justice in addition to the mechanics of changing minds and hearts with words and pictures.
MOVIES MADE FOR A PURPOSE
The films that were meant to inspire soldiers of the fight, did not always tell a story about the specific fight ongoing. The Battleship Potemkin was aimed at mobilizing soldiers, sailors and workers to taking up the cause of the state. The Triumph of the Will was a supposed antiseptic story of a lone man who would speak to gathered thousands, in agreement with the lone man, the messianic sort of speaker. Why We Fight was the work of Frank Capra, an expert cinematographer. He used the images of the American war, then being fought to create the evidence to explain America's movement from isolationist to active, choosing to embrace the need for a policeman of the world. It was a study in emotional response to a violent war, and made its profile known as a just power. Rightly or wrongly. In Which We Serve won an Oscar. It was the British version of making its case for war showing a British destroyer being bombed and the survivors thinking upon the paths that led them to war. It is not the equal of Triumph of the Will nor Why We Fight, but it is a better film as films go. Or at least, it feels less like propaganda.
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