Propaganda Is A Rhetorical Weapon Of Mass Destruction Analysis

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Words that kill - how propaganda is a rhetorical weapon of mass destruction Dominic Koenig Rhetoric and Writing Professor Jennifer Johnson 2 December 2013 Introduction How did millions of educated German citizens come to believe that they were members of a superior race? How did Afrikaners in South Africa believe that they were God’s chosen people born to ‘rule the black man’? How was a great sense of pride instilled in Japanese parents when their son was called upon to be a kamikaze pilot? How do commonplace children in Iraq become suicide bombers? How does propaganda indoctrinate ordinary people to commit acts of extraordinary cruelty? As a South African exchange student at UCSB, I am often filled with a deep sense of shame when Americans’ only associations with my country are Apartheid and…show more content…
In Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz’s book, Everything's an Argument, a strong case is made that even getting dressed is a rhetorical act. Conversely, propaganda exists on a far more particular platform. The conditions with which propaganda operates are more hostile, aggressive, blatant and in-your-face than that of rhetoric. Typically, propaganda flourishes in societies where despair and desperation are present. These hopeless societies are easily indoctrinated by the persuasive tools of propaganda as their fears, anxiety and anger cloud their ability to use logic and reason. Economic hardship has a strong correlation to the effectiveness of propaganda as the poorer people are the more susceptible they are to apparent ‘solutions’ offered by leaders in power. On the contrary, rhetoric does not need a platform of fear and desperation to be of use, as rhetoric, in its traditional form, promotes the use of logic and reason to arrive at an intellectual answer. Although fear and anxiety may be present at a rhetorical act, they are not requirements that are depended on for

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